Eichmann in Jerusalem

Eichmann provided two reasons for his astounding cooperation with the trial authorities. (Even the judges who insisted that Eichmann was simply a liar had to admit that they knew no answer to the question: “Why did the accused confess before Superintendent Less to a number of incriminating details of which, on the face of it, there could be no proof but for his confession, in particular to his journeys to the East, where he saw the atrocities with his own eyes?”) In Argentina, years before his capture, he had written how tired he was of his anonymity, and the more he read about himself, the more tired he must have become. His second explanation, given in Israel, was more dramatic: “About a year and a half ago [i.e., in the spring of 1959], I heard from an acquaintance who had just returned from a trip to Germany that a certain feeling of guilt had seized some sections of German youth… and the fact of this guilt complex was for me as much of a landmark as, let us say, the landing of the first man-bearing rocket on the moon. It became an essential point of my inner life, around which many thoughts crystallized. This was why I did not escape… when I knew the search commando was closing in on me…. After these conversations about the guilt feeling among young people in Germany, which made such a deep impression on me, I felt I no longer had the right to disappear. This is also why I offered, in a written statement, at the beginning of this examination… to hang myself in public. I wanted to do my part in lifting the burden of guilt from German youth, for these young people are, after all, innocent of the events, and of the acts of their fathers, during the last war”—which, incidentally, he was still calling, in another context, a “war forced upon the German Reich.” Of course, all this was empty talk. What prevented him from returning to Germany of his own free will to give himself up? He was asked this question, and he replied that in his opinion German courts still lacked the “objectivity” needed for dealing with people like him. But if he did prefer to be tried by an Israeli court—as he somehow implied, and which was just barely possible—he could have spared the Israeli government much time and trouble. We have seen before that this kind of talk gave him feelings of elation, and indeed it kept him in something approaching good spirits throughout his stay in the Israeli prison. It even enabled him to look upon death with remarkable equanimity—“I know that the death sentence is in store for me,” he declared at the beginning of the police examination.

There was some truth behind the empty talk, and the truth emerged quite clearly when the question of his defense was put to him. For obvious reasons, the Israeli government had decided to admit a foreign counselor, and on July 14, 1960, six weeks after the police examination had started, with Eichmann's explicit consent, he was informed that there were three possible counselors among whom he might choose, in arranging his defense—Dr. Robert Servatius, who was recommended by his family (Servatius had offered his services in a long-distance call to Eichmann's stepbrother in Linz), another German lawyer now residing in Chile, and an American law firm in New York, which had contacted the trial authorities. (Only Dr. Servatius’ name was divulged.) There might, of course, be other possibilities, which Eichmann was entitled to explore, and he was told repeatedly that he could take his time. He did nothing of the sort, but said on the spur of the moment that he would like to retain Dr. Servatius, since he seemed to be an acquaintance of his stepbrother and, also, had defended other war criminals, and he insisted on signing the necessary papers immediately. Half an hour later, it occurred to him that the trial could assume “global dimensions,” that it might become a “monster process,” that there were several attorneys for the prosecution, and that Servatius alone would hardly be able “to digest all the material.” He was reminded that Servatius, in a letter asking for power of attorney, had said that he “would lead a group of attorneys” (he never did), and the police officer added, “It must be assumed that Dr. Servatius won't appear alone. That would be a physical impossibility.” But Dr. Servatius, as it turned out, appeared quite alone most of the time. The result of all this was that Eichmann became the chief assistant to his own defense counsel, and, quite apart from writing books “for future generations,” worked very hard throughout the trial.

On June 29, 1961, ten weeks after the opening of the trial on April 11, the prosecution rested its case, and Dr. Servatius opened the case for the defense; on August 14, after a hundred and fourteen sessions, the main proceedings came to an end. The court then adjourned for four months, and reassembled on December 11 to pronounce judgment. For two days, divided into five sessions, the three judges read the two hundred and forty-four sections of the judgment. Dropping the prosecution's charge of “conspiracy,” which would have made him a “chief war criminal,” automatically responsible for everything which had to do with the Final Solution, they convicted Eichmann on all fifteen counts of the indictment, although he was acquitted on some particulars. “Together with others,” he had committed crimes “against the Jewish people,” that is, crimes against Jews with intent to destroy the people, on four counts: (1) by “causing the killing of millions of Jews”; (2) by placing “millions of Jews under conditions which were likely to lead to their physical destruction”; (3) by “causing serious bodily and mental harm” to them; and (4) by “directing that births be banned and pregnancies interrupted among Jewish women” in Theresienstadt. But they acquitted him of any such charges bearing on the period prior to August, 1941, when he was informed of the Führer's order; in his earlier activities, in Berlin, Vienna, and Prague, he had no intention “to destroy the Jewish people. These were the first four counts of the indictment. Counts 5 through 12 dealt with “crimes against humanity”—a strange concept in the Israeli law, inasmuch as it included both genocide if practiced against non-Jewish peoples (such as the Gypsies or the Poles) and all other crimes, including murder, committed against either Jews or non-Jews, provided that these crimes were not committed with intent to destroy the people as a whole. Hence, everything Eichmann had done prior to the Fiihrer's order and all his acts against non-Jews were lumped together as crimes against humanity, to which were added, once again, all his later crimes against Jews, since these were ordinary crimes as well. The result was that Count 5 convicted him of the same crimes enumerated in Counts 1 and 2, and that Count 6 convicted him of having “persecuted Jews on racial, religious, and political grounds”; Count 7 dealt with “the plunder of property… linked with the murder… of these Jews,” and Count 8 summed up all these deeds again as “war crimes,” since most of them had been committed during the war. Counts 9 through 12 dealt with crimes against non-Jews: Count 9 convicted him of the “expulsion of… hundreds of thousands of Poles from their homes,” Count 10 of “the expulsion of fourteen thousand Slovenes” from Yugoslavia, Count 11 of the deportation of “scores of thousands of Gypsies” to Auschwitz. But the judgment held that “it has not been proved before us that the accused knew that the Gypsies were being transported to destruction”—which meant that no genocide charge except the “crime against the Jewish people” was brought. This was difficult to understand, for, apart from the fact that the extermination of Gypsies was common knowledge, Eichmann had admitted during the police examination that he knew of it: he had remembered vaguely that this had been an order from Himmler, that no “directives” had existed for Gypsies as they existed for Jews, and that there had been no “research” done on the “Gypsy problem”—“origins, customs, habits, organization… folklore… economy.” His department had been commissioned to undertake the “evacuation” of thirty thousand Gypsies from Reich territory, and he could not remember the details very well, because there had been no intervention from any side; but that Gypsies, like Jews, were shipped off to be exterminated he had never doubted. He was guilty of their extermination in exactly the same way he was guilty of the extermination of the Jews. Count 12 concerned the deportation of ninety-three children from Lidice, the Czech village whose inhabitants had been massacred after the assassination of Heydrich; he was, however, rightly acquitted of the murder of these children. The last three counts charged him with membership in three of the four organizations that the Nuremberg Trials had classified as “criminal”—the S.S.; the Security Service, or S.D.; and the Secret State Police, or Gestapo. (The fourth such organization, the leadership corps of the National Socialist Party, was not mentioned, because Eichmann obviously had not been one of the Party leaders.) His membership in them prior to May, 1940, fell under the statute of limitations (twenty years) for minor offenses. (The Law of 1950 under which Eichmann was tried specifies that there is no statute of limitation for major offenses, and that the argument res judicata shall not avail—a person can be tried in Israel “even if he has already been tried abroad, whether before an international tribunal or a tribunal of a foreign state, for the same offense.”) All crimes enumerated under Counts 1 through 12 carried the death penalty.

Eichmann, it will be remembered, had steadfastly insisted that he was guilty only of “aiding and abetting” in the commission of the crimes with which he was charged, that he himself had never committed an overt act. The judgment, to one's great relief, in a way recognized that the prosecution had not succeeded in proving him wrong on this point. For it was an important point; it touched upon the very essence of this crime, which was no ordinary crime, and the very nature of this criminal, who was no common criminal; by implication, it also took cognizance of the weird fact that in the death camps it was usually the inmates and the victims who had actually wielded “the fatal instrument with [their] own hands.” What the judgment had to say on this point was more than correct, it was the truth: “Expressing his activities in terms of Section 23 of our Criminal Code Ordinance, we should say that they were mainly those of a person soliciting by giving counsel or advice to others and of one who enabled or aided others in [the criminal] act.” But “in such an enormous and complicated crime as the one we are now considering, wherein many people participated, on various levels and in various modes of activity —the planners, the organizers, and those executing the deeds, according to their various ranks—there is not much point in using the ordinary concepts of counseling and soliciting to commit a crime. For these crimes were committed en masse, not only in regard to the number of victims, but also in regard to the numbers of those who perpetrated the crime, and the extent to which any one of the many criminals was close to or remote from the actual killer of the victim means nothing, as far as the measure of his responsibility is concerned. On the contrary, in general the degree of responsibility increases as we draw further away from the man who uses the fatal instrument with his own hands [my italics].”

What followed the reading of the judgment was routine. Once more, the prosecution rose to make a rather lengthy speech demanding the death penalty, which, in the absence of mitigating circumstances, was mandatory, and Dr. Servatius replied even more briefly than before: the accused had carried out “acts of state,” what had happened to him might happen in future to anyone, the whole civilized world faced this problem, Eichmann was “a scapegoat,” whom the present German government had abandoned to the court in Jerusalem, contrary to international law, in order to clear itself of responsibility. The competence of the court, never recognized by Dr. Servatius, could be construed only as trying the accused “in a representative capacity, as representing the legal powers vested in [a German court]”—as, indeed, one German state prosecutor had formulated the task of Jerusalem. Dr. Servatius had argued earlier that the court must acquit the defendant because, according to the Argentine statute of limitations, he had ceased to be liable to criminal proceedings against him on May 7, 1960, “a very short time before the abduction”; he now argued, in the same vein, that no death penalty could be pronounced because capital punishment had been abolished unconditionally in Germany.

Then came Eichmann's last statement: His hopes for justice were disappointed; the court had not believed him, though he had always done his best to tell the truth. The court did not understand him: he had never been a Jew-hater, and he had never willed the murder of human beings. His guilt came from his obedience, and obedience is praised as a virtue. His virtue had been abused by the Nazi leaders. But he was not one of the ruling clique, he was a victim, and only the leaders deserved punishment. (He did not go quite as far as many of the other low-ranking war criminals, who complained bitterly that they had been told never to worry about “responsibilities,” and that they were now unable to call those responsible to account because these had “escaped and deserted” them—by committing suicide, or by having been hanged.) “I am not the monster I a made out to be,” Eichmann said. “I am the victim of a fallacy.” He did not use the word “scapegoat,” but he confirmed what Servatius had said: it was his “profound conviction that [he] must suffer for the acts of others.” After two more days, on Friday, December 15, 1961, at nine o'clock in the morning, the death sentence was pronounced.

Three months later, on March 22, 1962, review proceedings were opened before the Court of Appeal, Israel's Supreme Court, before five judges presided over by Itzhak Olshan. Mr. Hausner appeared again, with four assistants, for the prosecution, and Dr. Servatius, with none, for the defense. Counsel for the defense repeated all the old arguments against the competence of the Israeli court, and since all his efforts to persuade the West German government to start extradition proceedings had been in vain, he now demanded that Israel offer extradition. He had brought with him a new list of witnesses, but there was not a single one among them who could conceivably have produced anything resembling “new evidence.” He had included in the list Dr. Hans Globke, whom Eichmann had never seen in his life and of whom he had probably heard for the first time in Jerusalem, and, even more startling, Dr. Chaim Weizmann, who had been dead for ten years. The plaidoyer was an incredible hodgepodge, full of errors (in one instance, the defense offered as new evidence the French translation of a document that had already been submitted by the prosecution, in two other cases it had simply misread the documents, and so on), its carelessness contrasted vividly with the rather careful introduction of certain remarks that were bound to be offensive to the court: gassing was again a “medical matter”; a Jewish court had no right to sit in judgment over the fate of the children from Lidice, since they were not Jewish; Israeli legal procedure ran counter to Continental procedure—to which Eichmann, because of his national origin, was entitled—in that it required the defendant to provide the evidence for his defense, and this the accused had been unable to do because neither witnesses nor defense documents were available in Israel. In short, the trial had been unfair, the judgment unjust.

The proceedings before the Court of Appeal lasted only a week, after which the court adjourned for two months. On May 29, 1962, the second judgment was read—somewhat less voluminous than the first, but still fifty-one single-spaced legal-sized pages. It ostensibly confirmed the District Court on all points, and to make this confirmation the judges would not have needed two months and fifty-one pages. The judgment of the Court of Appeal was actually a revision of the judgment of the lower court, although it did not say so. In conspicuous contrast to the original judgment, it was now found that “the appellant had received no ‘superior orders’ at all. He was his own superior, and he gave all orders in matters that concerned Jewish affairs”; he had, moreover, “eclipsed in importance all his superiors, including Müller.” And, in reply to the obvious argument of the defense that the Jews would have been no better off had Eichmann never existed, the judges now stated that “the idea of the Final Solution would never have assumed the infernal forms of the flayed skin and tortured flesh of millions of Jews without the fanatical zeal and the unquenchable blood thirst of the appellant and his accomplices.” Israel's Supreme Court had not only accepted the arguments of the prosecution, it had adopted its very language.

The same day, May 29, Itzhak Ben-Zvi, President of Israel, received Eichmann's plea for mercy, four handwritten pages, made “upon instructions of my counsel,” together with letters from his wife and his family in Linz. The President also received hundreds of letters and telegrams from all over the world, pleading for clemency; outstanding among the senders were the Central Conference of American Rabbis, the representative body of Reform Judaism in this country, and a group of professors from the Hebrew University in Jerusalem, headed by Martin Buber, who had been opposed to the trial from the start, and who now tried to persuade Ben-Gurion to intervene for clemency. Mr. Ben-Zvi rejected all pleas for mercy on May 31, two days after the Supreme Court had delivered its judgment, and a few hours later on that same day—it was a Thursday—shortly before midnight, Eichmann was hanged, his body was cremated, and the ashes were scattered in the Mediterranean outside Israeli waters.

The speed with which the death sentence was carried out was extraordinary, even if one takes into account that Thursday night was the last possible occasion before the following Mon-day, since Friday, Saturday, and Sunday are all religious holidays for one or another of the three denominations in the country. The execution took place less than two hours after Eichmann was informed of the rejection of his plea for mercy; there had not even been time for a last meal. The explanation may well be found in two last-minute attempts Dr. Servatius made to save his client—an application to a court in West Germany to force the government to demand Eichmann's extradition, even now, and a threat to invoke Article 25 of the Convention for the Protection of Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms. Neither Dr. Servatius nor his assistant was in Israel when Eichmann's plea was rejected, and the Israeli government probably wanted to close the case, which had been going on for two years, before the defense could even apply for a stay in the date of execution.

The death sentence had been expected, and there was hardly anyone to quarrel with it; but things were altogether different when it was learned that the Israelis had carried it out. The protests were short-lived, but they were widespread and they were voiced by people of influence and prestige. The most common argument was that Eichmann's deeds defied the possibility of human punishment, that it was pointless to impose the death sentence for crimes of such magnitude—which, of course, was true, in a sense, except that it could not conceivably mean that he who had murdered millions should for this very reason escape punishment. On a considerably lower level, the death sentence was called “unimaginative,” and very imaginative alternatives were proposed forthwith—Eichmann “should have spent the rest of his life at hard labor in the arid stretches of the Negev, helping with his sweat to reclaim the Jewish homeland,” a punishment he would probably not have survived for more than a single day, to say nothing of the fact that in Israel the desert of the south is hardly looked upon as a penal colony; or, in Madison Avenue style, Israel should have reached “divine heights,” rising above “the understandable, legal, political, and even human considerations,” by calling together “all those who took part in the capture, trial, and sentencing to a public ceremony, with Eichmann there in shackles, and with television cameras and radio to decorate them as the heroes of the century.”

Martin Buber called the execution a “mistake of historical dimensions,” as it might “serve to expiate the guilt felt by many young persons in Germany”—an argument that oddly echoed Eichmann's own ideas on the matter, though Buber hardly knew that he had wanted to hang himself in public in order to lift the burden of guilt from the shoulders of German youngsters. (It is strange that Buber, a man not only of eminence but of very great intelligence, should not see how spurious these much publicized guilt feelings necessarily are. It is quite gratifying to feel guilty if you haven't done anything wrong: how noble! Whereas it is rather hard and certainly depressing to admit guilt and to repent. The youth of Germany is surrounded, on all sides and in all walks of life, by men in positions of authority and in public office who are very guilty indeed but who feel nothing of the sort. The normal reaction to this state of affairs should be indignation, but indignation would be quite risky—not a danger to life and limb but definitely a handicap in a career. Those young German men and women who every once in a while—on the occasion of all the Diary of Anne Frank hubbub and of the Eichmann trial—treat us to hysterical outbreaks of guilt feelings are not staggering under the burden of the past, their fathers' guilt; rather, they are trying to escape from the pressure of very present and actual problems into a cheap sentimentality.) Professor Buber went on to say that he felt “no pity at all” for Eichmann, because he could feel pity “only for those whose actions I understand in my heart,” and he stressed what he had said many years ago in Germany that he had “only in a formal sense a common humanity with those who took part” in the acts of the Third Reich. This lofty attitude was, of course, more of a luxury than those who had to try Eichmann could afford, since the law presupposes precisely that we have a common humanity with those whom we accuse and judge and condemn. As far as I know, Buber was the only philosopher to go on public record on the subject of Eichmann's execution (shortly before the trial started, Karl Jaspers had given a radio interview in Basel, later published in Der Monat, in which he argued the case for an international tribunal); it was disappointing to find him dodging, on the highest possible level, the very problem Eichmann and his deeds had posed.

Least of all was heard from those who were against the death penalty on principle, unconditionally; their arguments would have remained valid, since they would not have needed to specify them for this particular case. They seem to have felt— rightly, I think—that this was not a very promising case on which to fight.

Adolf Eichmann went to the gallows with great dignity. He had asked for a bottle of red wine and had drunk half of it. He refused the help of the Protestant minister, the Reverend William Hull, who offered to read the Bible with him: he had only two more hours to live, and therefore no “time to waste.” He walked the fifty yards from his cell to the execution chamber calm and erect, with his hands bound behind him. When the guards tied his ankles and knees, he asked them to loosen the bonds so that he could stand straight. “I don't need that,” he said when the black hood was offered him. He was in complete command of himself, nay, he was more: he was completely himself. Nothing could have demonstrated this more convincingly than the grotesque silliness of his last words. He began by stating emphatically that he was a Gottgläubiger, to express in common Nazi fashion that he was no Christian and did not believe in life after death. He then proceeded: “After a short while, gentlemen, we shall all meet again. Such is the fate of all men. Long live Germany, long live Argentina, long live Austria. I shall not forget them.” In the face of death, he had found the cliché used in funeral oratory. Under the gallows, his memory played him the last trick; he was “elated” and he forgot that this was his own funeral.

It was as though in those last minutes he was summing up the lesson that this long course in human wickedness had taught us—the lesson of the fearsome, word-and-thought-defying banality of evil.

Epilogue

The irregularities and abnormalities of the trial in Jerusalem were so many, so varied, and of such legal complexity that they overshadowed during the trial, as they have in the surprisingly small amount of post-trial literature, the central moral, political, and even legal problems that the trial inevitably posed. Israel herself, through the pre-trial statements of Prime Minister Ben-Gurion and through the way the accusation was framed by the prosecutor, confused the issues further by listing a great number of purposes the trial was supposed to achieve, all of which were ulterior purposes with respect to the law and to courtroom procedure. The purpose of a trial is to render justice, and nothing else; even the noblest of ulterior purposes—“the making of a record of the Hitler regime which would withstand the test of history,” as Robert G. Storey, executive trial counsel at Nuremberg, formulated the supposed higher aims of the Nuremberg Trials—can only detract from the law's main business: to weigh the charges brought against the accused, to render judgment, and to mete out due punishment.

The judgment in the Eichmann case, whose first two sections were written in reply to the higher-purpose theory as it was expounded both inside and outside the courtroom, could not have been clearer in this respect and more to the point: All attempts to widen the range of the trial had to be resisted, because the court could not “allow itself to be enticed into provinces which are outside its sphere…. the judicial process has ways of its own, which are laid down by law, and which do not change, whatever the subject of the trial may be.” The court, moreover, could not overstep these limits without ending “in complete failure.” Not only does it not have at its disposal “the tools required for the investigation of general questions,” it speaks with an authority whose very weight depends upon its limitation. “No one has made us judges” of matters outside the realm of law, and “no greater weight is to be attached to our opinion on them than to that of any person devoting study and thought” to them. Hence, to the question most commonly asked about the Eichmann trial: What good does it do?, there is but one possible answer: It will do justice.

The objections raised against the Eichmann trial were of three kinds. First, there were those objections that had been raised against the Nuremberg Trials and were now repeated: Eichmann was tried under a retroactive law and appeared in the court of the victors. Second, there were those objections that applied only to the Jerusalem court, in that they questioned either its competence as such or its failure to take into account the act of kidnaping. And, finally, and most important, there were objections to the charge itself, that Eichmann had committed crimes “against the Jewish people,” instead of “against humanity,” and hence to the law under which he was tried; and this objection led to the logical conclusion that the only proper court to try these crimes was an international tribunal.

The court's reply to the first set of objections was simple: the Nuremberg Trials were cited in Jerusalem as valid precedent, and, acting under municipal law, the judges could hardly have done otherwise, since the Nazis and Nazi Collaborators (Punishment) Law of 1950 was itself based on this precedent. “This particular legislation,” the judgment pointed out, “is totally different from any other legislation usual in criminal codes,” and the reason for its difference lies in the nature of the crimes it deals with. Its retroactivity, one may add, violates only formally, not substantially, the principle nullum crimen, nulla poena sine lege, since this applies meaningfully only to acts known to the legislator; if a crime unknown before, such as genocide, suddenly makes its appearance, justice itself demands a judgment according to a new law; in the case of Nuremberg, this new law was the Charter (the London Agreement of 1945), in the case of Israel, it was the Law of 1950. The question is not whether these laws were retroactive, which, of course, they had to be, but whether they were adequate, that is, whether they applied only to crimes previously unknown. This prerequisite for retroactive legislation had been seriously marred in the Charter that provided for the establishment of the International Military Tribunal at Nuremberg, and it may be for this reason that the discussion of these matters has remained somewhat confused.

The Charter accorded jurisdiction over three sorts of crimes: “crimes against peace,” which the Tribunal called the “supreme international crime… in that it contains within itself the accumulated evil of the whole”; “war crimes”; and “crimes against humanity.” Of these, only the last, the crime against humanity, was new and unprecedented. Aggressive warfare is at least as old as recorded history, and while it had been denounced as “criminal” many times before, it had never been recognized as such in any formal sense. (None of the current justifications of the Nuremberg court's jurisdiction over this matter has much to commend it. It is true that Wilhelm II had beeen cited before a tribunal of the Allied powers after the First World War, but the crime the former German Kaiser had been charged with was not war but breach of treaties—and specifically, the violation of Belgium's neutrality. It is also true that the Briand-Kellogg pact of August, 1928, had ruled out war as an instrument of national policy, but the pact contained neither a criterion of aggression nor a mention of sanctions—quite apart from the fact that the security system that the pact was meant to bring about had collapsed prior to the outbreak of war.) Moreover, one of the judging countries, namely, Soviet Russia, was open to the tu-quoque argument. Hadn't the Russians attacked Finland and divided Poland in 1939 with complete impunity? “War crimes,” on the other hand, surely no more unprecedented than the “crimes against peace,” were coverd by international law. The Hague and Geneva Conventions had defined these “violations of the laws or customs of war”; they consisted chiefly of ill-treatment of prisoners and of warlike acts against civilian populations. No new law with retroactive force was needed here, and the main difficulty at Nuremberg lay in the indisputable fact that here, again, the tu-quoque argument applied: Russia, which had never signed the Hague Convention (IItaly, incidentally, had not ratified it either), was more than suspected of mistreatment of prisoners, and, according to recent investigations, the Russians also seem to be responsible for the murder of fifteen thousand Polish officers whose bodies were found at Katyn Forest (in the neighborhood of Smolensk, in Russia). Worse, the saturation bombing of open cities and, above all, the dropping of atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki clearly constituted war crimes in the sense of the Hague Convention. And while the bombing of German cities had been provoked by the enemy, by the bombing of London and Coventry and Rotterdam, the same cannot be said of the use of an entirely new and overwhelmingly powerful weapon, whose existence could have been announced and demonstrated in many other ways. To be sure, the most obvious reason that the violations of the Hague Convention committed by the Allies were never even discussed in legal terms was that the International Military Tribunals were international in name only, that they were in fact the courts of the victors, and the authority of their judgment, doubtful in any case, was not enhanced when the coalition that had won the war and then undertaken this joint enterprise broke up, to quote Otto Kirchheimer, “before the ink on the Nuremberg judgments had time to dry.” But this most obvious reason is neither the only nor, perhaps, the most potent reason that no Allied war crimes, in the sense of the Hague Convention, were cited and prosecuted, and it is only fair to add, that the Nuremberg Tribunal was at least very cautious about convicting the German defendants on charges that were open to the tu-quoque argument. For the truth of the matter was that by the end of the Second World War everybody knew that technical developments in the instruments of violence had made the adoption of “criminal” warfare inevitable. It was precisely the distinction between soldier and civilian, between army and home population, between military targets and open cities, upon which the Hague Convention's definitions of war crimes rested, that had become obsolete. Hence, it was felt that under these new conditions war crimes were only those outside all military necessities, where a deliberate inhuman purpose could be demonstrated.

This factor of gratuitous brutality was a valid criterion for determining what, under the circumstances, constituted a war crime. It was not valid for, but was unfortunately introduced into the fumbling definitions of, the only entirely new crime, the “crime against humanity,” which the Charter (in Article 6-c) defined as an “inhuman act”—as though this crime, too, were a matter of criminal excess in the pursuit of war and victory. However, it was by no means this sort of well-known offense that had prompted the Allies to declare, in the words of Churchill, that “punishment of war criminals [was] one of the principal war aims” but, on the contrary, reports of unheard-of atrocities, the blotting out of whole peoples, the “clearance” of whole regions of their native population, that is, not only crimes that “no conception of military necessity could sustain” but crimes that were in fact independent of the war and that announced a policy of systematic murder to be continued in time of peace. This crime was indeed not covered by international or municipal law, and, moreover, it was the only crime to which the tu-quoque argument did not apply. And yet there was no other crime in the face of which the Nuremberg judges felt so uncomfortable, and which they left in a more tantalizing state of ambiguity. It is perfectly true that—in the words of the French judge at Nuremberg, Donnedieu de Vabres, to whom we owe one of the best analyses of the trial (Le Procès de Nuremberg, 1947)—“the category of crimes against humanity which the Charter had let enter by a very small door evaporated by virtue of the Tribunal's judgment.” The judges, however, were as little consistent as the Charter itself, for although they preferred to convict, as Kirchheimer says, “on the war crime charge, which embraced all the traditional common crimes, while underemphasizing as much as possible the charges of crimes against humanity, when it came to pronouncing sentence, they revealed their true sentiment by meting out their most severe punishment, the death penalty, only to those who had been found guilty of those quite uncommon atrocities that actually constituted a “crime against humanity,” or, as the French prosecutor François de Menthon called it, with greater accuracy, a “crime against the human status.” The notion that aggression is “the supreme international crime” was silently abandoned when a number of men were sentenced to death who had never been convicted of a “conspiracy” against peace.

In justification of the Eichmann trial, it has frequently been maintained that although the greatest crime committed during the last war had been against the Jews, the Jews had been only bystanders in Nuremberg, and the judgment of the Jerusalem court made the point that now, for the first time, the Jewish catastrophe “occupied the central place in the court proceedings, and [that] it was this fact which distinguished this trial from those which preceded it,” at Nuremberg and elsewhere. But this is, at best, a half-truth. It was precisely the Jewish catastrophe that prompted the Allies to conceive of a “crime against humanity” in the first place, because, Julius Stone has written, in Legal Controls of International Conflict (1954), “the mass murder of the Jews, if they were Germany's own nationals, could only be reached by the humanity count.” And what had prevented the Nuremberg Tribunal from doing full justice to this crime was not that its victims were Jews but that the Charter demanded that this crime, which had so little to do with war that its commission actually conflicted with and hindered the war's conduct, was to be tied up with the other crimes. How deeply the Nuremberg judges were aware of the outrage perpetrated against the Jews may perhaps best be gauged by the fact that the only defendant to be condemned to death on a crime-against-humanity charge alone was Julius Streicher, whose specialty had been anti-Semitic obscenities. In this instance, the judges disregarded all other considerations.

What distinguished the trial in Jerusalem from those that preceded it was not that the Jewish people now occupied the central place. In this respect, on the contrary, the trial resembled the postwar trials in Poland and Hungary, in Yugoslavia and Greece, in Soviet Russia and France, in short, in all formerly Nazi-occupied countries. The International Military Tribunal at Nuremberg had been established for war criminals whose crimes could not be localized, all others were delivered to the countries where they had committed their crimes. Only the “major war criminals” had acted without territorial limitations, and Eichmann certainly was not one of them. (This—and not, as was frequently maintained, his disappearance—was the reason he was not accused at Nuremberg; Martin Bormann, for instance, was accused, tried, and condemned to death in absentia.) If Eichmann's activities had spread all over occupied Europe, this was so not because he was so important that territorial limits did not apply to him but because it was in the nature of his task, the collection and deportation of all Jews, that he and his men had to roam the continent. It was the territorial dispersion of the Jews that made the crime against them an “international” concern in the limited, legal sense of the Nuremberg Charter. Once the Jews had a territory of their own, the State in Israel, they obviously had as much right to sit in judgment on the crimes committed against their people as the Poles had to judge crimes committed in Poland. All objections raised against the Jerusalem trial on the ground of the principle of territorial jurisdiction were legalistic in the extreme, and although the court spent a number of sessions discussing all these objections, they were actually of no great relevance. There was not the slightest doubt that Jews had been killed qua Jews, irrespective of their nationalities at the time, and though it is true that the Nazis killed many Jews who had chosen to deny their ethnic origin, and would perhaps have preferred to be killed as Frenchmen or as Germans, justice could be done even in these cases only if one took the intent and the purpose of the criminals into account.

Equally unfounded, I think, was the even more frequent argument against the possible partiality of Jewish judges—that they, especially if they were citizens of a Jewish State, were judging in their own cause. It is difficult to see how the Jewish judges differed in this respect from their colleagues in any of the other Successor trials, where Polish judges pronounced sentence for crimes against the Polish people, or Czech judges sat in judgment on what had happened in Prague and in Bratislava. (Mr. Hausner, in the last of his articles in the Saturday Evening Post, unwittingly added new fuel to this argument: he said that the prosecution realized at once that Eichmann could not be defended by an Israeli lawyer, because there would be a conflict between “professional duties” and “national emotions.” Well, this conflict constituted the gist of all the objections to Jewish judges, and Mr. Hausner's argument in their favor, that a judge may hate the crime and yet be fair to the criminal, applies to the defense counsel as well: the lawyer who defends a murderer does not defend murder. The truth of the matter is that pressures outside the courtroom made it inadvisable, to put it mildly, to charge an Israeli citizen with the defense of Eichmann.) Finally, the argument that no Jewish State had existed at the time when the crime was committed is surely so formalistic, so out of tune with reality and with all demands that justice must be done, that we may safely leave it to the learned debates of the experts. In the interest of justice (as distinguished from the concern with certain procedures which, important in its own right, can never be permitted to overrule justice, the law's chief concern), the court, to justify its competence, would have needed to invoke neither the principle of passive personality—that the victims were Jews and that only Israel was entitled to speak in their names—nor the principle of universal jurisdiction, applying to Eichmann because he was hostis generis humani the rules that are applicable to piracy. Both theories, discussed at length inside and outside the Jerusalem courtroom, actually blurred the issues and obscured the obvious similarity between the Jerusalem trial and the trials that had preceded it in other countries where special legislation had likewise been enacted to ensure the punishment of the Nazis or their collaborators.

The passive-personality principle, which in Jerusalem was based upon the learned opinion of P. N. Drost, in Crime of State (1959), that under certain circumstances “the forum patriae victimae may be competent to try the case,” unfortunately implies that criminal proceedings are initiated by the government in the name of the victims, who are assumed to have a right to revenge. This was indeed the position of the prosecution, and Mr. Hausner opened his address with the following words: “When I stand before you, judges of Israel, in this court, to accuse Adolf Eichmann, I do not stand alone. Here with me at this moment stand six million prosecutors. But alas, they cannot rise to level the finger of accusation in the direction of the glass dock and cry out J‘accuse against the man who sits there… Their blood cries to Heaven, but their voice cannot be heard. Thus it falls to me to be their mouthpiece and to deliver the heinous accusation in their name.” With such rhetoric the prosecution gave substance to the chief argument against the trial, that it was established not in order to satisfy the demands of justice but to still the victims’ desire for and, perhaps, right to vengeance. Criminal proceedings, since they are mandatory and thus initiated even if the victim would prefer to forgive and forget, rest on laws whose “essence”—to quote Telford Taylor, writing in the New York Times Magazine— “is that a crime is not committed only against the victim but primarily against the community whose law is violated.” The wrongdoer is brought to justice because his act has disturbed and gravely endangered the community as a whole, and not because, as in civil suits, damage has been done to individuals who are entitled to reparation. The reparation effected in criminal cases is of an altogether different nature; it is the body politic itself that stands in need of being “repaired,” and it is the general public order that has been thrown out of gear and must be restored, as it were. It is, in other words, the law, not the plaintiff, that must prevail.

Even less justifiable than the prosecution's effort to rest its case on the passive-personality principle was the inclination of the court to claim competence in the name of universal jurisdiction, for it was in flagrant conflict with the conduct of the trial as well as with the law under which Eichmann was tried. The principle of universal jurisdiction, it was said, was applicable because crimes against humanity are similar to the old crime of piracy, and who commits them has become, like the pirate in traditional international law, hostis humani generis. Eichmann, however, was accused chiefly of crimes against the Jewish people, and his capture, which the theory of universal jurisdiction was meant to excuse, was certainly not due to his also having committed crimes against humanity but exclusively to his role in the Final Solution of the Jewish problem.

Yet even if Israel had kidnaped Eichmann solely because he was hostis humani generis and not because he was hostis Judaeorum, it would have been difficult to justify the legality of his arrest. The pirate's exception to the territorial principle—which, in the absence of an international penal code, remains the only valid legal principle—is made not because he is the enemy of all, and hence can be judged by all, but because his crime is committed on the high seas, and the high seas are no man's land. The pirate, moreover, “in defiance of all law, acknowledging obedience to no flag whatsoever” (H. Zeisel, Britannica Book of the Year, 1962), is, by definition, in business entirely for himself; he is an outlaw because he has chosen to put himself outside all organized communities, and it is for this reason that he has become “the enemy of all alike.” Surely, no one will maintain that Eichmann was in business for himself or that he acknowledged obedience to no flag whatsoever. In this respect, the piracy theory served only to dodge one of the fundamental problems posed by crimes of this kind, namely, that they were, and could only be, committed under a criminal law and by a criminal state.

The analogy between genocide and piracy is not new, and it is therefore of some importance to note that the Genocide Convention, whose resolutions were adopted by the United Nations General Assembly on December 9, 1948, expressly rejected the claim to universal jurisdiction and provided instead that “persons charged with genocide… shall be tried by a competent tribunal of the States in the territory of which the act was committed or by such international penal tribunal as may have jurisdiction.” In accordance with this Convention, of which Israel was a signatory, the court should have either sought to establish an international tribunal or tried to reformulate the territorial principle in such a way that it applied to Israel. Both alternatives lay definitely within the realm of possibility and within the court's competence. The possibility of establishing an international tribunal was cursorily dismissed by the court for reasons which we shall discuss later, but the reason no meaningful redefinition of the territorial principle was sought— so that the court finally claimed jurisdiction on the ground of all three principles: territorial as well as passive-personality and universal-jurisdiction, as though merely adding together three entirely different legal principles would result in a valid claim—was certainly closely connected with the extreme reluctance of all concerned to break fresh ground and act without precedents. Israel could easily have claimed territorial jurisdiction if she had only explained that “territory,” as the law understands it, is a political and a legal concept, and not merely a geographical term. It relates not so much, and not primarily, to a piece of land as to the space between individuals in a group whose members are bound to, and at the same time separated and protected from, each other by all kinds of relationships, based on a common language, religion, a common history, customs, and laws. Such relationships become spatially manifest insofar as they themselves constitute the space wherein the different members of a group relate to and have intercourse with each other. No State of Israel would ever have come into being if the Jewish people had not created and maintained its own specific in-between space throughout the long centuries of dispersion, that is, prior to the seizure of its old territory. The court, however, never rose to the challenge of the unprecedented, not even in regard to the unprecedented nature of the origins of the Israel state, which certainly was closest to its heart and thought. Instead, it buried the proceedings under a flood of precedents—during the sessions of the first week of the trial, to which the first fifty-three sections of the judgment correspond—many of which sounded, at least to the layman's ear, like elaborate sophisms.

The Eichmann trial, then, was in actual fact no more, but also no less, than the last of the numerous Successor trials which followed the Nuremberg Trials. And the indictment quite properly carried in an appendix the official interpretation of the Law of 1950 by Pinhas Rosen, then Minister of Justice, which could not be clearer and less equivocal: “While other peoples passed suitable legislation for the punishment of the Nazis and their collaborators soon after the end of the war, and some even before it was over, the Jewish people… had no political authority to bring the Nazi criminals and their collaborators to justice until the establishment of the State.” Hence, the Eichmann trial differed from the Successor trials only in one respect—the defendant had not been duly arrested and extradited to Israel; on the contrary, a clear violation of international law had been committed in order to bring him to justice. We mentioned before that only Eichmann's de facto statelessness enabled Israel to get away with kidnaping him, and it is understandable that despite the innumerable precedents cited in Jerusalem to justify the act of kidnaping, the only relevant one, the capture of Berthold Jakob, a Leftist German Jewish journalist, in Switzerland by Gestapo agents in 1935, was never mentioned. (None of the other precedents applied, because they invariably concerned a fugitive from justice who was brought back not only to the place of his crimes but to a court that had issued, or could have issued, a valid warrant of arrest—conditions that Israel could not have fulfilled.) In this instance, Israel had indeed violated the territorial principle, whose great significance lies in the fact that the earth is inhabited by many peoples and that these peoples are ruled by many different laws, so that every extension of one territory's law beyond the borders and limitations of its validity will bring it into immediate conflict with the law of another territory.

This, unhappily, was the only almost unprecedented feature in the whole Eichmann trial, and certainly it was the least entitled ever to become a valid precedent. (What are we going to say if tomorrow it occurs to some African state to send its agents into Mississippi and to kidnap one of the leaders of the segregationist movement there? And what are we going to reply if a court in Ghana or the Congo quotes the Eichmann case as a precedent?) Its justification was the unprecedentedness of the crime and the coming into existence of a Jewish State. There were, moreover, important mitigating circumstances in that there hardly existed a true alternative if one indeed wished to bring Eichmann to justice. Argentina had an impressive record for not extraditing Nazi criminals; even if there had been an extradition treaty between Israel and Argentina, an extradition request would almost certainly not have been honored. Nor would it have helped to hand Eichmann over to the Argentine police for extradition to West Germany; for the Bonn government had earlier sought extradition from Argentina of such well-known Nazi criminals as Karl Klingenfuss and Dr. Josef Mengele (the latter implicated in the most horrifying medical experiments at Auschwitz and in charge of the “selection”) without any success. In the case of Eichmann, such a request would have been doubly hopeless, since, according to Argentine law, all offenses connected with the last war had fallen under the statute of limitation fifteen years after the end of the war, so that after May 7, 1960, Eichmann could not have been legally extradited anyway. In short, the realm of legality offered no alternative to kidnaping.

Those who are convinced that justice, and nothing else, is the end of law will be inclined to condone the kidnaping act, though not because of precedents but, on the contrary, as a desperate, unprecedented and no-precedent-setting act, necessitated by the unsatisfactory condition of international law. In this perspective, there existed but one real alternative to what Israel had done: instead of capturing Eichmann and flying him to Israel, the Israeli agents could have killed him right then and there, in the streets of Buenos Aires. This course of action was frequently mentioned in the debates on the case and, somewhat oddly, was recommended most fervently by those who were most shocked by the kidnaping. The notion was not without merit, because the facts of the case were beyond dispute, but those who proposed it forgot that he who takes the law into his own hands will render a service to justice only if he is willing to transform the situation in such a way that the law can again operate and his act can, at least posthumously, be validated. Two precedents in the recent past come immediately to mind. There was the case of Shalom Schwartzbard, who in Paris on May 25, 1926, shot and killed Simon Petlyura, former hetman of the Ukrainian armies and responsible for the pogroms during the Russian civil war that claimed about a hundred thousand victims between 1917 and 1920. And there was the case of the Armenian Tehlirian, who, in 1921, in the middle of Berlin, shot to death Talaat Bey, the great killer in the Armenian pogroms of 1915, in which it is estimated that a third (six hundred thousand) of the Armenian population in Turkey was massacred. The point is that neither of these assassins was satisfied with killing “his” criminal, but that both immediately gave themselves up to the police and insisted on being tried. Each used his trial to show the world through court procedure what crimes against his people had been committed and gone unpunished. In the Schwartzbard trial, especially, methods very similar to those in the Eichmann trial were used. There was the same stress on extensive documentation of the crimes, but that time it was prepared for the defense (by the Comité des Délégations Juives, under the chairmanship of the late Dr. Leo Motzkin, which needed a year and a half to collect the material and then published it in Les Pogromes en Ukraine sous les gouvernements ukrainiens 1917–1920, 1927), just as that time it was the accused and his lawyer who spoke in the name of the victims, and who, incidentally, even then raised the point about the Jews “who had never defended themselves.” (See the plaidoyer of Henri Torrès in his book Le Procès des Pogromes, 1928). Both men were acquitted, and in both cases it was felt that their gesture “signified that their race had finally decided to defend itself, to leave behind its moral abdication, to overcome its resignation in the face of insults,” as Georges Suarez admiringly put it in the case of Shalom Schwartzbard.

The advantages of this solution to the problem of legalities that stand in the way of justice are obvious. The trial, it is true, is again a “show” trial, and even a show, but its “hero,” the one in the center of the play, on whom all eyes are fastened, is now the true hero, while at the same time the trial character of the proceedings is safeguarded, because it is not “a spectacle with prearranged results” but contains that element of “irreducible risk” which, according to Kirchheimer, is an indispensable factor in all criminal trials. Also, the J'accuse, so indispensable from the viewpoint of the victim, sounds, of course, much more convincing in the mouth of a man who has been forced to take the law into his own hands than in the voice of a government-appointed agent who risks nothing. And yet—quite apart from practical considerations, such as that Buenos Aires in the sixties hardly offers either the same guarantees or the same publicity for the defendant that Paris and Berlin offered in the twenties—it is more than doubtful that this solution would have been justifiable in Eichmann's case, and it is obvious that it would have been altogether unjustifiable if carried out by government agents. The point in favor of Schwartzbard and Tehlirian was that each was a member of an ethnic group that did not possess its own state and legal system, that there was no tribunal in the world to which either group could have brought its victims. Schwartzbard, who died in 1938, more than ten years before the proclamation of the Jewish State, was not a Zionist, and not a nationalist of any sort; but there is no doubt that he would have welcomed the State of Israel enthusiastically, for no other reason than that it would have provided a tribunal for crimes that had so often gone unpunished. His sense of justice would have been satisfied. And when we read the letter he addressed from his prison in Paris to his brothers and sisters in Odessa—“Faites savoir dans les villes et dans les villages de Balta, Proskouro, Tzcherkass, Ouman, Jitomir…, portez-y le message édifiant: la colère juive a tiré sa vengeance! Le sang de l'assassin Petlioura, qui a jailli dans la ville mondiale, à Paris,… rappellera le crime féroce… commis envers le pauvre et abandonné peuple juif”—we recognize immediately not, perhaps, the language that Mr. Hausner actually spoke during the trial (Shalom Schwartz-bard's language was infinitely more dignified and more moving) but certainly the sentiments and the state of mind of Jews all over the world to which it was bound to appeal.

I have insisted on the similarities between the Schwartzbard trial in 1927 in Paris and the Eichmann trial in 1961 in Jerusalem because they demonstrate how little Israel, like the Jewish people in general, was prepared to recognize, in the crimes that Eichmann was accused of, an unprecedented crime, and precisely how difficult such a recognition must have been for the Jewish people. In the eyes of the Jews, thinking exclusively in terms of their own history, the catastrophe that had befallen them under Hitler, in which a third of the people perished, appeared not as the most recent of crimes, the unprecedented crime of genocide, but, on the contrary, as the oldest crime they knew and remembered. This misunderstanding, almost inevitable if we consider not only the facts of Jewish history but also, and more important, the current Jewish historical self-understanding, is actually at the root of all the failures and shortcomings of the Jerusalem trial. None of the participants ever arrived at a clear understanding of the actual horror of Auschwitz, which is of a different nature from all the atrocities of the past, because it appeared to prosecution and judges alike as not much more than the most horrible pogrom in Jewish history. They therefore believed that a direct line existed from the early anti-Semitism of the Nazi Party to the Nuremberg Laws and from there to the expulsion of Jews from the Reich and, finally, to the gas chambers. Politically and legally, however, these were “crimes” different not only in degree of seriousness but in essence.

The Nuremberg Laws of 1935 legalized the discrimination practiced before that by the German majority against the Jewish minority. According to international law, it was the privilege of the sovereign German nation to declare to be a national minority whatever part of its population it saw fit, as long as its minority laws conformed to the rights and guarantees established by inter-nationally recognized minority treaties and agreements. International Jewish organizations therefore promptly tried to obtain for this newest minority the same rights and guarantees that minorities in Eastern and Southeastern Europe had been granted at Geneva. But even though this protection was not granted, the Nuremberg Laws were generally recognized by other nations as part of German law, so that it was impossible for a German national to enter into a “mixed marriage” in Holland, for instance. The crime of the Nuremberg Laws was a national crime; it violated national, constitutional rights and liberties, but it was of no concern to the comity of nations. “Enforced emigration,” however, or expulsion, which became official policy after 1938, did concern the international community, for the simple reason that those who were expelled appeared at the frontiers of other countries, which were forced either to accept the uninvited guests or to smuggle them into another country, equally unwilling to accept them. Expulsion of nationals, in other words, is already an offense against humanity, if by “humanity” we understand no more than the comity of nations. Neither the national crime of legalized discrimination, which amounted to persecution by law, nor the international crime of expulsion was unprecedented, even in the modern age. Legalized discrimination had been practiced by all Balkan countries, and expulsion on a mass scale had occurred after many revolutions. It was when the Nazi regime declared that the German people not only were unwilling to have any Jews in Germany but wished to make the entire Jewish people disappear from the face of the earth that the new crime, the crime against humanity—in the sense of a crime “against the human status,” or against the very nature of mankind— appeared. Expulsion and genocide, though both are international offenses, must remain distinct; the former is an offense against fellow-nations, whereas the latter is an attack upon human diversity as such, that is, upon a characteristic of the “human status” without which the very words “mankind” or “humanity” would be devoid of meaning.

Had the court in Jerusalem understood that there were distinctions between discrimination, expulsion, and genocide, it would immediately have become clear that the supreme crime it was confronted with, the physical extermination of the Jewish people, was a crime against humanity, perpetrated upon the body of the Jewish people, and that only the choice of victims, not the nature of the crime, could be derived from the long history of Jew-hatred and anti-Semitism. Insofar as the victims were Jews, it was right and proper that a Jewish court should sit in judgment; but insofar as the crime was a crime against humanity, it needed an international tribunal to do justice to it. (The failure of the court to draw this distinction was surprising, because it had actually been made before by the former Israeli Minister of Justice, Mr. Rosen, who in 1950 had insisted on “a distinction between this bill [for crimes against the Jewish people] and the Law for the Prevention and Punishment of Genocide,” which was discussed but not passed by the Israeli Parliament. Obviously, the court felt it had no right to overstep the limits of municipal law, so that genocide, not being covered by an Israeli law, could not properly enter into its considerations.) Among the numerous and highly qualified voices that raised objections to the court in Jerusalem and were in favor of an international tribunal, only one, that of Karl Jaspers, stated clearly and unequivocally—in a radio interview held before the trial began and later published in Der Monat—that “the crime against the Jews was also a crime against mankind,” and that “consequently the verdict can be handed down only by a court of justice representing all mankind.” Jaspers proposed that the court in Jerusalem, after hearing the factual evidence, “waive” the right to pass sentence, declaring itself “incompetent” to do so, because the legal nature of the crime in question was still open to dispute, as was the subsequent question of who would be competent to pass sentence on a crime which had been committed on government orders. Jaspers stated further that one thing alone was certain: “This crime is both more and less than common murder,” and though it was not a “war crime,” either, there was no doubt that “mankind would certainly be destroyed if states were permitted to perpetrate such crimes.”

Jaspers' proposal, which no one in Israel even bothered to discuss, would, in this form, presumably have been impracticable from a purely technical point of view. The question of a court's jurisdiction must be decided before the trial begins; and once a court has been declared competent, it must also pass judgment. However, these purely formalistic objections could easily have been met if Jaspers had called not upon the court, but rather upon the state of Israel to waive its right to carry out the sentence once it had been handed down, in view of the unprecedented nature of the court's findings. Israel might then have had recourse to the United Nations and demonstrated, with all the evidence at hand, that the need for an international criminal court was imperative, in view of these new crimes committed against mankind as a whole. It would then have been in Israel's power to make trouble, to “create a wholesome disturbance,” by asking again and again just what it should do with this man whom it was holding prisoner; constant repetition would have impressed on worldwide public opinion the need for a permanent international criminal court. Only by creating, in this way, an “embarrassing situation” of concern to the representatives of all nations would it be possible to prevent “mankind from setting its mind at ease” and “massacre of the Jews… from becoming a model for crimes to come, perhaps the small-scale and quite paltry example of future genocide.” The very monstrousness of the events is “minimized” before a tribunal that represents one nation only.

This argument in favor of an international tribunal was unfortunately confused with other proposals based on different and considerably less weighty considerations. Many friends of Israel, both Jews and non-Jews, feared that the trial would harm Israel's prestige and give rise to a reaction against Jews the world over. It was thought that Jews did not have the right to appear as judges in their own case, but could act only as accusers; Israel should therefore hold Eichmann prisoner until a special tribunal could be created by the United Nations to judge him. Quite apart from the fact that Israel, in the proceedings against Eichmann, was doing no more than what all the countries which had been occupied by Germany had long since done, and that justice was at stake here, not the prestige of Israel or of the Jewish people, all these proposals had one flaw in common: they could too easily be countered by Israel. They were indeed quite unrealistic in view of the fact that the U.N. General Assembly had “twice rejected proposals to consider the establishment of a permanent international criminal court” (A.D.L. Bulletin). But another, more practical proposition, which usually is not mentioned precisely because it was feasible, was made by Dr. Nahum Goldmann, president of the World Jewish Congress. Goldmann called upon Ben-Gurion to set up an international court in Jerusalem, with judges from each of the countries that had suffered under Nazi occupation. This would not have been enough; it would have been only an enlargement of the Successor trials, and the chief impairment of justice, that it was being rendered in the court of the victors, would not have been cured. But it would have been a practical step in the right direction.

Israel, as may be remembered, reacted against all these proposals with great violence. And while it is true, as has been pointed out by Yosal Rogat (in The Eichmann Trial and the Rule of Law, published by the Center for the Study of Democratic Institutions, Santa Barbara, California, 1962), that Ben-Gurion always “seemed to misunderstand completely when asked, ‘Why should he not be tried before an international court?,’” it is also true that those who asked the question did not understand that for Israel the only unprecedented feature of the trial was that, for the first time (since the year 70, when Jerusalem was destroyed by the Romans), Jews were able to sit in judgment on crimes committed against their own people, that, for the first time, they did not need to appeal to others for protection and justice, or fall back upon the compromised phraseology of the rights of man—rights which, as no one knew better than they, were claimed only by people who were too weak to defend their “rights of Englishmen” and to enforce their own laws. (The very fact that Israel had her own law under which such a trial could be held had been called, long before the Eichmann trial, an expression of “a revolutionary transformation that has taken place in the political position of the Jewish people”—by Mr. Rosen on the occasion of the First Reading of the Law of 1950 in the Knesset.) It was against the background of these very vivid experiences and aspirations that Ben-Gurion said: “Israel does not need the protection of an International Court.”

Moreover, the argument that the crime against the Jewish people was first of all a crime against mankind, upon which the valid proposals for an international tribunal rested, stood in flagrant contradiction to the law under which Eichmann was tried. Hence, those who proposed that Israel give up her prisoner should have gone one step further and declared: The Nazis and Nazi Collaborators (Punishment) Law of 1950 is wrong, it is in contradiction to what actually happened, it does not cover the facts. And this would indeed have been quite true. For just as a murderer is prosecuted because he has violated the law of the community, and not because he has deprived the Smith family of its husband, father, and breadwinner, so these modern, state-employed mass murderers must be prosecuted because they violated the order of mankind, and not because they killed millions of people. Nothing is more pernicious to an understanding of these new crimes, or stands more in the way of the emergence of an international penal code that could take care of them, than the common illusion that the crime of murder and the crime of genocide are essentially the same, and that the latter therefore is “no new crime properly speaking.” The point of the latter is that an altogether different order is broken and an altogether different community is violated. And, indeed, it was because Ben-Gurion knew quite well that the whole discussion actually concerned the validity of the Israeli law that he finally reacted nastily, and not just with violence, against the critics of Israeli procedures: Whatever these “so-called experts” had to say, their arguments were “sophisms,” inspired either by anti-Semitism, or, in the case of Jews, by inferiority complexes. “Let the world understand: We shall not give up our prisoner.”

It is only fair to say that this was by no means the tone in which the trial was conducted in Jerusalem. But I think it is safe to predict that this last of the Successor trials will no more, and perhaps even less than its predecessors, serve as a valid precedent for future trials of such crimes. This might be of little import in view of the fact that its main purpose—to prosecute and to defend, to judge and to punish Adolf Eichmann—was achieved, if it were not for the rather uncomfortable but hardly deniable possibility that similar crimes may be committed in the future. The reasons for this sinister potentiality are general as well as particular. It is in the very nature of things human that every act that has once made its appearance and has been recorded in the history of mankind stays with mankind as a potentiality long after its actuality has become a thing of the past. No punishment has ever possessed enough power of deterrence to prevent the commission of crimes. On the contrary, whatever the punishment, once a specific crime has appeared for the first time, its reappearance is more likely than its initial emergence could ever have been. The particular reasons that speak for the possibility of a repetition of the crimes committed by the Nazis are even more plausible. The frightening coincidence of the modern population explosion with the discovery of technical devices that, through automation, will make large sections of the population “superfluous” even in terms of labor, and that, through nuclear energy, make it possible to deal with this twofold threat by the use of instruments beside which Hitler's gassing installations look like an evil child's fumbling toys, should be enough to make us tremble.

It is essentially for this reason: that the unprecedented, once it has appeared, may become a precedent for the future, that all trials touching upon “crimes against humanity” must be judged according to a standard that is today still an “ideal.” If genocide is an actual possibility of the future, then no people on earth—least of all, of course, the Jewish people, in Israel or elsewhere—can feel reasonably sure of its continued existence without the help and the protection of international law. Success or failure in dealing with the hitherto unprecedented can lie only in the extent to which this dealing may serve as a valid precedent on the road to international penal law. And this demand, addressed to the judges in such trials, does not overshoot the mark and ask for more than can reasonably be expected. International law, Justice Jackson pointed out at Nuremberg, “is an outgrowth of treaties and agreements between nations and of accepted customs. Yet every custom has its origin in some single act…. Our own day has the right to institute customs and to conclude agreements that will themselves become sources of a newer and strengthened international law.” What Justice Jackson failed to point out is that, in consequence of this yet unfinished nature of international law, it has become the task of ordinary trial judges to render justice without the help of, or beyond the limitation set upon them through, positive, posited laws. For the judge, this may be a predicament, and he is only too likely to protest that the “single act” demanded of him is not his to perform but is the business of the legislator.

And, indeed, before we come to any conclusion about the success or failure of the Jerusalem court, we must stress the judges' firm belief that they had no right to become legislators, that they had to conduct their business within the limits of Israeli law, on the one side, and of accepted legal opinion, on the other. It must be admitted furthermore that their failures were neither in kind nor in degree greater than the failures of the Nuremberg Trials or the Successor trials in other European countries. On the contrary, part of the failure of the Jerusalem court was due to its all too eager adherence to the Nuremberg precedent wherever possible.

In sum, the failure of the Jerusalem court consisted in its not coming to grips with three fundamental issues, all of which have been sufficiently well known and widely discussed since the establishment of the Nuremberg Tribunal: the problem of impaired justice in the court of the victors; a valid definition of the “crime against humanity”; and a clear recognition of the new criminal who commits this crime.

As to the first of these, justice was more seriously impaired in Jerusalem than it was at Nuremberg, because the court did not admit witnesses for the defense. In terms of the traditional requirements for fair and due process of law, this was the most serious flaw in the Jerusalem proceedings. Moreover, while judgment in the court of the victors was perhaps inevitable at the close of the war (to Justice Jackson's argument in Nuremberg: “Either the victors must judge the vanquished or we must leave the defeated to judge should be added the understandable feeling on the part of the Allies that they “who had risked everything could not admit neutrals” [Vabres]), it was not the same sixteen years later, and under circumstances in which the argument against the admission of neutral countries did not make sense.

As to the second issue, the findings of the Jerusalem court were incomparably better than those at Nuremberg. I have mentioned before the Nuremberg Charter's definition of “crimes against humanity” as “inhuman acts,” which were translated into German as Verbrechen gegen die Menschlichkeit—as though the Nazis had simply been lacking in human kindness, certainly the understatement of the century. To be sure, had the conduct of the Jerusalem trial depended entirely upon the prosecution, the basic misunderstanding would have been even worse than at Nuremberg. But the judgment refused to let the basic character of the crime be swallowed up in a flood of atrocities, and it did not fall into the trap of equating this crime with ordinary war crimes. What had been mentioned at Nuremberg only occasionally and, as it were, marginally—that “the evidence shows that… the mass murders and cruelties were not committed solely for the purpose of stamping out opposition” but were “part of a plan to get rid of whole native populations”—was in the center of the Jerusalem proceedings, for the obvious reason that Eichmann stood accused of a crime against the Jewish people, a crime that could not be explained by any utilitarian purpose; Jews had been murdered all over Europe, not only in the East, and their annihilation was not due to any desire to gain territory that “could be used for colonization by Germans.” It was the great advantage of a trial centered on the crime against the Jewish people that not only did the difference between war crimes, such as shooting of partisans and killing of hostages, and “inhuman acts,” such as “expulsion and annihilation” of native populations to permit colonization by an invader, emerge with sufficient clarity to become part of a future international penal code, but also that the difference between “inhuman acts” (which were undertaken for some known, though criminal, purpose, such as expansion through colonization) and the “crime against humanity,” whose intent and purpose were unprecedented, was clarified. At no point, however, either in the proceedings or in the judgment, did the Jerusalem trial ever mention even the possibility that extermination of whole ethnic groups—the Jews, or the Poles, or the Gypsies—might be more than a crime against the Jewish or the Polish or the Gypsy people, that the international order, and mankind in its entirety, might have been grievously hurt and endangered.

Closely connected with this failure was the conspicuous helplessness the judges experienced when they were confronted with the task they could least escape, the task of understanding the criminal whom they had come to judge. Clearly, it was not enough that they did not follow the prosecution in its obviously mistaken description of the accused as a “perverted sadist,” nor would it have been enough if they had gone one step further and shown the inconsistency of the case for the prosecution, in which Mr. Hausner wanted to try the most abnormal monster the world had ever seen and, at the same time, try in him “many like him,” even the “whole Nazi movement and anti-Semitism at large.” They knew, of course, that it would have been very comforting indeed to believe that Eichmann was a monster, even though if he had been Israel's case against him would have collapsed or, at the very least, lost all interest. Surely, one can hardly call upon the whole world and gather correspondents from the four corners of the earth in order to display Bluebeard in the dock. The trouble with Eichmann was precisely that so many were like him, and that the many were neither perverted nor sadistic, that they were, and still are, terribly and terrifyingly normal. From the viewpoint of our legal institutions and of our moral standards of judgment, this normality was much more terrifying than all the atrocities put together, for it implied—as had been said at Nuremberg over and over again by the defendants and their counsels—that this new type of criminal, who is in actual fact hostis generis humani, commits his crimes under circumstances that make it well-nigh impossible for him to know or to feel that he is doing wrong. In this respect, the evidence in the Eichmann case was even more convincing than the evidence presented in the trial of the major war criminals, whose pleas of a clear conscience could be dismissed more easily because they combined with the argument of obedience to “superior orders” various boasts about occasional disobedience. But although the bad faith of the defendants was manifest, the only ground on which guilty conscience could actually be proved was the fact that the Nazis, and especially the criminal organizations to which Eichmann belonged, had been so very busy destroying the evidence of their crimes during the last months of the war. And this ground was rather shaky. It proved no more than recognition that the law of mass murder, because of its novelty, was not yet accepted by other nations; or, in the language of the Nazis, that they had lost their fight to “liberate” mankind from the “rule of subhumans,” especially from the domination of the Elders of Zion; or, in ordinary language, it proved no more than the admission of defeat. Would any one of them have suffered from a guilty conscience if they had won?

Foremost among the larger issues at stake in the Eichmann trial was the assumption current in all modern legal systems that intent to do wrong is necessary for the commission of a crime. On nothing, perhaps, has civilized jurisprudence prided itself more than on this taking into account of the subjective factor. Where this intent is absent, where, for whatever reasons, even reasons of moral insanity, the ability to distinguish between right and wrong is impaired, we feel no crime has been committed. We refuse, and consider as barbaric, the propositions “that a great crime offends nature, so that the very earth cries out for vengeance; that evil violates a natural harmony which only retribution can restore; that a wronged collectivity owes a duty to the moral order to punish the criminal” (Yosal Rogat). And yet I think it is undeniable that it was precisely on the ground of these long-forgotten propositions that Eichmann was brought to justice to begin with, and that they were, in fact, the supreme justification for the death penalty. Because he had been implicated and had played a central role in an enterprise whose open purpose was to eliminate forever certain “races” from the surface of the earth, he had to be eliminated. And if it is true that “justice must not only be done but must be seen to be done,” the justice of what was done in Jerusalem would have emerged to be seen by all if the judges had dared to address their defendant in something like the following terms:

“You admitted that the crime committed against the Jewish people during the war was the greatest crime in recorded history, and you admitted your role in it. But you said you had never acted from base motives, that you had never had any inclination to kill anybody, that you had never hated Jews, and still that you could not have acted otherwise and that you did not feel guilty. We find this difficult, though not altogether impossible, to believe; there is some, though not very much, evidence against you in this matter of motivation and conscience that could be proved beyond reasonable doubt. You also said that your role in the Final Solution was an accident and that almost anybody could have taken your place, so that potentially almost all Germans are equally guilty. What you meant to say was that where all, or almost all, are guilty, nobody is. This is an indeed quite common conclusion, but one we are not willing to grant you. And if you don't understand our objection, we would recommend to your attention the story of Sodom and Gomorrah, two neighboring cities in the Bible, which were destroyed by fire from Heaven because all the people in them had become equally guilty. This, incidentally, has nothing to do with the newfangled notion of ‘collective guilt,’ according to which people supposedly are guilty of, or feel guilty about, things done in their name but not by them—things in which they did not participate and from which they did not profit. In other words, guilt and innocence before the law are of an objective nature, and even if eighty million Germans had done as you did, this would not have been an excuse for you.

“Luckily, we don't have to go that far. You yourself claimed not the actuality but only the potentiality of equal guilt on the part of all who lived in a state whose main political purpose had become the commission of unheard-of crimes. And no matter through what accidents of exterior or interior circumstances you were pushed onto the road of becoming a criminal, there is an abyss between the actuality of what you did and the potentiality of what others might have done. We are concerned here only with what you did, and not with the possible noncriminal nature of your inner life and of your motives or with the criminal potentialities of those around you. You told your story in terms of a hard-luck story, and, knowing the circumstances, we are, up to a point, willing to grant you that under more favorable circumstances it is highly unlikely that you would ever have come before us or before any other criminal court. Let us assume, for the sake of argument, that it was nothing more than misfortune that made you a willing instrument in the organization of mass murder; there still remains the fact that you have carried out, and therefore actively supported, a policy of mass murder. For politics is not like the nursery; in politics obedience and support are the same. And just as you supported and carried out a policy of not wanting to share the earth with the Jewish people and the people of a number of other nations—as though you and your superiors had any right to determine who should and who should not inhabit the world—we find that no one, that is, no member of the human race, can be expected to want to share the earth with you. This is the reason, and the only reason, you must hang.”

Postscript

This book contains a trial report, and its main source is the transcript of the trial proceedings which was distributed to the press in Jerusalem. Save for the opening speech of the prosecution, and the general plea of the defense, the record of the trial has not been published and is not easily accessible. The language of the courtroom was Hebrew; the materials handed to the press were stated to be “an unedited and unrevised transcript of the simultaneous translation” that “should not be regarded as stylistically perfect or devoid of linguistic errors.” I have used the English version throughout except in those instances when the proceedings were conducted in German; when the German transcript contained the original wording I felt free to use my own translation.

Except for the prosecutor's introductory speech and for the final verdict, the translations of which were prepared outside the courtroom, independently of the simultaneous translation, none of these records can be regarded as absolutely reliable. The only authoritative version is the official record in Hebrew, which I have not used. Nevertheless, all this material was officially given to the reporters for their use, and, so far as I know, no significant discrepancies between the official Hebrew record and the translation have yet been pointed out. The German simultaneous translation was very poor, but it may be assumed that the English and French translations are trustworthy.

No such doubts about the dependability of the sources arise in connection with the following courtroom materials, which— with one exception—were also given to the press by the Jerusalem authorities:

1) The transcript in German of Eichmann's interrogation by the police, recorded on tape, then typed, and the typescript presented to Eichmann, who corrected it in his own hand. Along with the transcript of the courtroom proceedings, this is the most important of the documents.

2) The documents submitted by the prosecution, and the “legal material” made available by the prosecution.

3) The sixteen sworn affidavits by witnesses originally called by the defense, although part of their testimony was subsequently used by the prosecution. These witnesses were: Erich von dem Bach-Zelewski, Richard Baer, Kurt Becher, Horst Grell, Dr. Wilhelm Höttl, Walter Huppenkothen, Hans Jüttner, Herbert Kappler, Hermann Krumey, Franz Novak, Alfred Josef Slawik, Dr. Max Merten, Professor Alfred Six, Dr. Eberhard von Thadden, Dr. Edmund Veesenmayer, Otto Winkelmann.

4) Finally, I also had at my disposal a manuscript of seventy typewritten pages written by Eichmann himself. It was submitted as evidence by the prosecution and accepted by the court, but not made available to the press. Its heading reads in translation: “Re: My comments on the matter of ‘Jewish questions and measures of the National Socialist Government of the German Reich with regard to solution of this matter during the years 1933 to 1945.’” This manuscript contains notes made by Eichmann in Argentina in preparation for the Sassen interview (see Bibliography).

The Bibliography lists only the material I actually used, not the innumerable books, articles, and newspaper stories I read and collected during the two years between Eichmann's kidnaping and his execution. I regret this incompleteness only in regard to the reports of correspondents in the German, Swiss, French, English, and American press, since these were often on a far higher level than the more pretentious treatments of the subject in books and magazines, but it would have been a disproportionately large task to fill this gap. I have therefore contented myself with adding to the Bibliography of this revised edition a selected number of books and magazine articles which appeared after the publication of my book, if they contained more than a rehashed version of the case for the prosecution. Among them are two accounts of the trial that often come to conclusions astonishingly similar to my own, and a study of the prominent figures in the Third Reich, which I have now added to my sources for background material. These are Robert Pendorf's Möder und Ermordete. Eichmann und die Judenpolitik des Dritten Reiches, which also takes into account the role of the Jewish Councils in the Final Solution; Strafsache 40/61 by the Dutch correspondent Harry Mulisch (I used the German translation), who is almost the only writer on the subject to put the person of the defendant at the center of his report and whose evaluation of Eichmann coincides with my own on some essential points; and finally the excellent, recently published portraits of leading Nazis by T. C. Fest in his Das Gesicht des Dritten Reiches; Fest is very knowledgeable and his judgments are on a remarkably high level.

The problems faced by the writer or a report may best be compared with those attendant on the writing of a historical monograph. In either case, the nature of the work requires a deliberate distinction between the use of primary and secondary material. Primary sources only may be used in the treatment of the special subject—in this case the trial itself—while secondary material is drawn upon for everything that constitutes the historical background. Thus, even the documents I have quoted were with very few exceptions presented in evidence at the trial (in which case they constituted my primary sources) or are drawn from authoritative books dealing with the period in question. As can be seen from the text, I have used Gerald Reitlinger's The Final Solution, and I have relied even more on Raul Hilberg's The Destruction of the European Jews, which appeared after the trial and constitutes the most exhaustive and the most soundly documented account of the Third Reich's Jewish policies.

Even before its publication, this book became both the center of a controversy and the object of an organized campaign. It is only natural that the campaign, conducted with all the well-known means of image-making and opinion-manipulation, got much more attention than the controversy, so that the latter was somehow swallowed up by and drowned in the artificial noise of the former. This became especially clear when a strange mixture of the two, in almost identical phraseology—as though the pieces written against the book (and more frequently against its author) came “out of a mimeographing machine” (Mary McCarthy)—was carried from America to England and then to Europe, where the book was not yet even available. And this was possible because the clamor centered on the “image” of a book which was never written, and touched upon subjects that often had not only not been mentioned by me but had never occurred to me before.

The debate—if that is what it was—was by no means devoid of interest. Manipulations of opinion, insofar as they are inspired by well-defined interests, have limited goals; their effect, however, if they happen to touch upon an issue of authentic concern, is no longer subject to their control and may easily produce consequences they never foresaw or intended. It now appeared that the era of the Hitler regime, with its gigantic, unprecedented crimes, constituted an “unmastered past” not only for the German people or for the Jews all over the world, but for the rest of the world, which had not forgotten this great catastrophe in the heart of Europe either, and had also been unable to come to terms with it. Moreover—and this was perhaps even less expected—general moral questions, with all their intricacies and modern complexities, which I would never have suspected would haunt men's minds today and weigh heavily on their hearts, stood suddenly in the foreground of public concern.

The controversy began by calling attention to the conduct of the Jewish people during the years of the Final Solution, thus following up the question, first raised by the Israeli prosecutor, of whether the Jews could or should have defended themselves. I had dismissed that question as silly and cruel, since it testified to a fatal ignorance of the conditions at the time. It has now been discussed to exhaustion, and the most amazing conclusions have been drawn. The well-known historico-socio-logical construct of a “ghetto mentality” (which in Israel has taken its place in history textbooks and in this country has been espoused chiefly by the psychologist Bruno Bettelheim— against the furious protest of official American Judaism) has been repeatedly dragged in to explain behavior which was not at all confined to the Jewish people and which therefore cannot be explained by specifically Jewish factors. The suggestions proliferated until someone who evidently found the whole discussion too dull had the brilliant idea of evoking Freudian theories and attributing to the whole Jewish people a “death wish”—unconscious, of course. This was the unexpected conclusion certain reviewers chose to draw from the “image” of a book, created by certain interest groups, in which I allegedly had claimed that the Jews had murdered themselves. And why had I told such a monstrously implausible lie? Out of “self-hatred,” of course.

Since the role of the Jewish leadership had come up at the trial, and since I had reported and commented on it, it was inevitable that it too should be discussed. This, in my opinion, is a serious question, but the debate has contributed little to its clarification. As can be seen from the recent trial in Israel at which a certain Hirsch Birnblat, a former chief of the Jewish police in a Polish town and now a conductor at the Israeli Opera, first was sentenced by a district court to five years’ imprisonment, and then was exonerated by the Supreme Court in Jerusalem, whose unanimous opinion indirectly exonerated the Jewish Councils in general, the Jewish Establishment is bitterly divided on this issue. In the debate, however, the most vocal participants were those who either identified the Jewish people with its leadership—in striking contrast to the clear distinction made in almost all the reports of survivors, which may be summed up in the words of a former inmate of Theresienstadt: “The Jewish people as a whole behaved magnificently. Only the leadership failed”—or justified the Jewish functionaries by citing all the commendable services they had rendered before the war, and above all before the era of the Final Solution, as though there were no difference between helping Jews to emigrate and helping the Nazis to deport them.

While these issues had indeed some connection with this book, although they were inflated out of all proportion, there were others which had no relation to it whatsoever. There was, for instance, a hot discussion of the German resistance movement from the beginning of the Hitler regime on, which I naturally did not discuss, since the question of Eichmann's conscience, and that of the situation around him, relates only to the period of the war and the Final Solution. But there were more fantastic items. Quite a number of people began to debate the question of whether the victims of persecution may not always be “uglier” than their murderers; or whether anyone who was not present is entitled “to sit in judgment” over the past; or whether the defendant or the victim holds the center of the stage in a trial. On the latter point, some went so far as to assert not only that I was wrong in being interested in what kind of person Eichmann was, but that he should not have been allowed to speak at all—that is, presumably, that the trial should have been conducted without any defense.

As is frequently the case in discussions that are conducted with a great show of emotion, the down-to-earth interests of certain groups, whose excitement is entirely concerned with factual matters and who therefore try to distort the facts, become quickly and inextricably involved with the untrammeled inspirations of intellectuals who, on the contrary, are not in the least interested in facts but treat them merely as a springboard for “ideas.” But even in these sham battles, there could often be detected a certain seriousness, a degree of authentic concern, and this even in the contributions by people who boasted that they had not read the book and promised that they never would read it.

Compared with these debates, which wandered so far afield, the book itself dealt with a sadly limited subject. The report of a trial can discuss only the matters which were treated in the course of the trial, or which in the interests of justice should have been treated. If the general situation of a country in which the trial takes place happens to be important to the conduct of the trial, it too must be taken into account. This book, then, does not deal with the history of the greatest disaster that ever befell the Jewish people, nor is it an account of totalitarianism, or a history of the German people in the time of the Third Reich, nor is it, finally and least of all, a theoretical treatise on the nature of evil. The focus of every trial is upon the person of the defendant, a man of flesh and blood with an individual history, with an always unique set of qualities, peculiarities, behavior patterns, and circumstances. All the things that go beyond that, such as the history of the Jewish people in the dispersion, and of anti-Semitism, or the conduct of the German people and other peoples, or the ideologies of the time and the governmental apparatus of the Third Reich, affect the trial only insofar as they form the background and the conditions under which the defendant committed his acts. All the things that the defendant did not come into contact with, or that did not influence him, must be omitted from the proceedings of the trial and consequently from the report on it.

It may be argued that all the general questions we involuntarily raise as soon as we begin to speak of these matters— why did it have to be the Germans? why did it have to be the Jews? what is the nature of totalitarian rule?—are far more important than the question of the kind of crime for which a man is being tried, and the nature of the defendant upon whom justice must be pronounced; more important, too, than the question of how well our present system of justice is capable of dealing with this special type of crime and criminal it has had repeatedly to cope with since the Second World War. It can be held that the issue is no longer a particular human being, a single distinct individual in the dock, but rather the German people in general, or anti-Semitism in all its forms, or the whole of modern history, or the nature of man and original sin—so that ultimately the entire human race sits invisibly beside the defendant in the dock. All this has often been argued, and especially by those who will not rest until they have discovered an “Eichmann in every one of us.” If the defendant is taken as a symbol and the trial as a pretext to bring up matters which are apparently more interesting than the guilt or innocence of one person, then consistency demands that we bow to the assertion made by Eichmann and his lawyer: that he was brought to book because a scapegoat was needed, not only for the German Federal Republic, but also for the events as a whole and for what made them possible—that is, for anti-Semitism and totalitarian government as well as for the human race and original sin.

I need scarcely say that I would never have gone to Jerusalem if I had shared these views. I held and hold the opinion that this trial had to take place in the interests of justice and nothing else. I also think the judges were quite right when they stressed in their verdict that “the State of Israel was established and recognized as the State of the Jews,” and therefore had jurisdiction over a crime committed against the Jewish people; and in view of the current confusion in legal circles about the meaning and usefulness of punishment, I was glad that the judgment quoted Grotius, who, for his part, citing an older author, explained that punishment is necessary “to defend the honor or the authority of him who was hurt by the offence so that the failure to punish may not cause his degradation.”

There is of course no doubt that the defendant and the nature of his acts as well as the trial itself raise problems of a general nature which go far beyond the matters considered in Jerusalem. I have attempted to go into some of these problems in the Epilogue, which ceases to be simple reporting. I would not have been surprised if people had found my treatment inadequate, and I would have welcomed a discussion of the general significance of the entire body of facts, which could have been all the more meaningful the more directly it referred to the concrete events. I also can well imagine that an authentic controversy might have arisen over the subtitle of the book; for when I speak of the banality of evil, I do so only on the strictly factual level, pointing to a phenomenon which stared one in the face at the trial. Eichmann was not Iago and not Macbeth, and nothing would have been farther from his mind than to determine with Richard III “to prove a villain.” Except for an extraordinary diligence in looking out for his personal advancement, he had no motives at all. And this diligence in itself was in no way criminal; he certainly would never have murdered his superior in order to inherit his post. He merely, to put the matter colloquially, never realized what he was doing. It was precisely this lack of imagination which enabled him to sit for months on end facing a German Jew who was conducting the police interrogation, pouring out his heart to the man and explaining again and again how it was that he reached only the rank of lieutenant colonel in the S.S. and that it had not been his fault that he was not promoted. In principle he knew quite well what it was all about, and in his final statement to the court he spoke of the “revaluation of values prescribed by the [Nazi] government.” He was not stupid. It was sheer thoughtlessness—something by no means identical with stupidity—that predisposed him to become one of the greatest criminals of that period. And if this is “banal” and even funny, if with the best will in the world one cannot extract any diabolical or demonic profundity from Eichmann, that is still far from calling it commonplace. It surely cannot be so common that a man facing death, and, moreover, standing beneath the gallows, should be able to think of nothing but what he has heard at funerals all his life, and that these “lofty words” should completely becloud the reality of his own death. That such remoteness from reality and such thoughtlessness can wreak more havoc than all the evil instincts taken together which, perhaps, are inherent in man—that was, in fact, the lesson one could learn in Jerusalem. But it was a lesson, neither an explanation of the phenomenon nor a theory about it.

Seemingly more complicated, but in reality far simpler than examining the strange interdependence of thoughtlessness and evil, is the question of what kind of crime is actually involved here—a crime, moreover, which all agree is unprecedented. For the concept of genocide, introduced explicitly to cover a crime unknown before, although applicable up to a point is not fully adequate, for the simple reason that massacres of whole peoples are not unprecedented. They were the order of the day in antiquity, and the centuries of colonization and imperialism provide plenty of examples of more or less successful attempts of that sort. The expression “administrative massacres” seems better to fill the bill. The term arose in connection with British imperialism; the English deliberately rejected such procedures as a means of maintaining their rule over India. The phrase has the virtue of dispelling the prejudice that such monstrous acts can be committed only against a foreign nation or a different race. There is the well-known fact that Hitler began his mass murders by granting “mercy deaths” to the “incurably ill,” and that he intended to wind up his extermination program by doing away with “genetically damaged” Germans (heart and lung patients). But quite aside from that, it is apparent that this sort of killing can be directed against any given group, that is, that the principle of selection is dependent only upon circumstantial factors. It is quite conceivable that in the automated economy of a not-too-distant future men may be tempted to exterminate all those whose intelligence quotient is below a certain level.

In Jerusalem this matter was inadequately discussed because it is actually very difficult to grasp juridically. We heard the protestations of the defense that Eichmann was after all only a “tiny cog” in the machinery of the Final Solution, and of the prosecution, which believed it had discovered in Eichmann the actual motor. I myself attributed no more importance to both theories than did the Jerusalem court, since the whole cog theory is legally pointless and therefore it does not matter at all what order of magnitude is assigned to the “cog” named Eichmann. In its judgment the court naturally conceded that such a crime could be committed only by a giant bureaucracy using the resources of government. But insofar as it remains a crime—and that, of course, is the premise for a trial—all the cogs in the machinery, no matter how insignificant, are in court forthwith transformed back into perpetrators, that is to say, into human beings. If the defendant excuses himself on the ground that he acted not as a man but as a mere functionary whose functions could just as easily have been carried out by anyone else, it is as if a criminal pointed to the statistics on crime—which set forth that so-and-so many crimes per day are committed in such-and-such a place—and declared that he only did what was statistically expected, that it was mere accident that he did it and not somebody else, since after all somebody had to do it.

Of course it is important to the political and social sciences that the essence of totalitarian government, and perhaps the nature of every bureaucracy, is to make functionaries and mere cogs in the administrative machinery out of men, and thus to dehumanize them. And one can debate long and profitably on the rule of Nobody, which is what the political form known as bureaucracy truly is. Only one must realize clearly that the administration of justice can consider these factors only to the extent that they are circumstances of the crime—just as, in a case of theft, the economic plight of the thief is taken into account without excusing the theft, let alone wiping it off the slate. True, we have become very much accustomed by modern psychology and sociology, not to speak of modern bureaucracy, to explaining away the responsibility of the doer for his deed in terms of this or that kind of determinism. Whether such seemingly deeper explanations of human actions are right or wrong is debatable. But what is not debatable is that no judicial procedure would be possible on the basis of them, and that the administration of justice, measured by such theories, is an extremely unmodern, not to say outmoded, institution. When Hitler said that a day would come in Germany when it would be considered a “disgrace” to be a jurist, he was speaking with utter consistency of his dream of a perfect bureaucracy.

As far as I can see, jurisprudence has at its disposal for treating this whole battery of questions only two categories, both of which, to my mind, are quite inadequate to deal with the matter. These are the concepts of “acts of state” and of acts “on superior orders.” At any rate, these are the only categories in terms of which such matters are discussed in this kind of trial, usually on the motion of the defendant. The theory of the act of state is based on the argument that one sovereign state may not sit in judgment upon another, par in parem non habet jurisdictionem. Practically speaking, this argument had already been disposed of at Nuremberg; it stood no chance from the start, since, if it were accepted, even Hitler, the only one who was really responsible in the full sense, could not have been brought to account a state of affairs which would have violated the most elementary sense of justice. However, an argument that stands no chance on the practical plane has not necessarily been demolished on the theoretical one. The usual evasions— that Germany at the time of the Third Reich was dominated by a gang of criminals to whom sovereignty and parity cannot very well be ascribed were hardly useful. For on the one hand everyone knows that the analogy with a gang of criminals is applicable only to such a limited extent that it is not really applicable at all, and on the other hand these crimes undeniably took place within a “legal” order. That, indeed, was their out standing characteristic.

Perhaps we can approach somewhat closer to the matter if we realize that back of the concept of act of state stands the theory of raison d'état. According to that theory, the actions of the state, which is responsible for the life of the country and thus also for the laws obtaining in it, are not subject to the same rules as the acts of the citizens of the country. Just as the rule of law, although devised to eliminate violence and the war of all against all, always stands in need of the instruments of violence in order to assure its own existence, so a government may find itself compelled to commit actions that are generally regarded as crimes in order to assure its own survival and the survival of lawfulness. Wars are frequently justified on these grounds, but criminal acts of state do not occur only in the field of international relations, and the history of civilized nations knows many examples of them—from Napoleon's assassination of the Duc d'Enghien, to the murder of the Socialist leader Matteotti, for which Mussolini himself was presumably responsible.

Raison d'état appeals—rightly or wrongly, as the case may be—to necessity, and the state crimes committed in its name (which are fully criminal in terms of the dominant legal system of the country where they occur) are considered emergency measures, concessions made to the stringencies of Realpolitik, in order to preserve power and thus assure the continuance of the existing legal order as a whole. In a normal political and legal system, such crimes occur as an exception to the rule and are not subject to legal penalty (are gerichtsfrei, as German legal theory expresses it) because the existence of the state itself is at stake, and no outside political entity has the right to deny a state its existence or prescribe how it is to preserve it. However—as we may have learned from the history of Jewish policy in the Third Reich—in a state founded upon criminal principles, the situation is reversed. Then a non-criminal act (such as, for example, Himmler's order in the late summer of 1944 to halt the deportation of Jews) becomes a concession to necessity imposed by reality, in this case the impending defeat. Here the question arises: what is the nature of the sovereignty of such an entity? Has it not violated the parity (par in parem non habet jurisdictionem) which international law accords it? Does the “par in parem” signify no more than the paraphernalia of sovereignty? Or does it also imply a substantive equality or likeness? Can we apply the same principle that is applied to a governmental apparatus in which crime and violence are exceptions and borderline cases to a political order in which crime is legal and the rule?

Just how inadequate juristic concepts really are to deal with the criminal facts which were the subject matter of all these trials appears perhaps even more strikingly in the concept of acts performed on superior orders. The Jerusalem court countered the argument advanced by the defense with lengthy quotations from the penal and military lawbooks of civilized countries, particularly of Germany; for under Hitler the pertinent articles had by no means been repealed. All of them agree on one point: manifestly criminal orders must not be obeyed. The court, moreover, referred to a case that came up in Israel several years ago: soldiers were brought to trial for having massacred the civilian inhabitants of an Arab village on the border shortly before the beginning of the Sinai campaign. The villagers had been found outside their houses during a military curfew of which, it appeared, they were unaware. Unfortunately, on closer examination the comparison appears to be defective on two accounts. First of all, we must again consider that the relationship of exception and rule, which is of prime importance for recognizing the criminality of an order executed by a subordinate, was reversed in the case of Eichmann's actions. Thus, on the basis of this argument one could actually defend Eichmann's failure to obey certain of Himmler's orders, or his obeying them with hesitancy: they were manifest exceptions to the prevailing rule. The judgment found this to be especially incriminating to the defendant, which was certainly very understandable but not very consistent. This can easily be seen from the pertinent findings of Israeli military courts, which were cited in support by the judges. They ran as follows: the order to be disobeyed must be “manifestly unlawful”; unlawfulness “should fly like a black flag above [it], as a warning reading, ‘Prohibited.’ In other words, the order, to be recognized by the soldier as “manifestly unlawful,” must violate by its unusualness the canons of the legal system to which he is accustomed. And Israeli jurisprudence in these matters coincides completely with that of other countries. No doubt in formulating these articles the legislators were thinking of cases in which an officer who suddenly goes mad, say, commands his subordinates to kill another officer. In any normal trial of such a case, it would at once become clear that the soldier was not being asked to consult the voice of conscience, or a “feeling of lawfulness that lies deep within every human conscience, also of those who are not conversant with books of law… provided the eye is not blind and the heart is not stony and corrupt.” Rather, the soldier would be expected to be able to distinguish between a rule and a striking exception to the rule. The German military code, at any rate, explicitly states that conscience is not enough. Paragraph 48 reads: “Punishability of an action or omission is not excluded on the ground that the person considered his behavior required by his conscience or the prescripts of his religion.” A striking feature of the Israeli court's line of argument is that the concept of a sense of justice grounded in the depths of every man is presented solely as a substitute for familiarity with the law. Its plausibility rests on the assumption that the law expresses only what every man's conscience would tell him anyhow.

If we are to apply this whole reasoning to the Eichmann case in a meaningful way, we are forced to conclude that Eichmann acted fully within the framework of the kind of judgment required of him: he acted in accordance with the rule, examined the order issued to him for its “manifest” legality, namely regularity; he did not have to fall back upon his “conscience,” since he was not one of those who were unfamiliar with the laws of his country. The exact opposite was the case.

The second account on which the argument based on comparison proved to be defective concerns the practice of the courts of admitting the plea of “superior orders” as important extenuating circumstances, and this practice was mentioned explicitly by the judgment. The judgment cited the case I have mentioned above, that of the massacre of the Arab inhabitants at Kfar Kassem, as proof that Israeli jurisdiction does not clear a defendant of responsibility for the “superior orders” he received. And it is true, the Israeli soldiers were indicted for murder, but “superior orders” constituted so weighty an argument for mitigating circumstances that they were sentenced to relatively short prison terms. To be sure, this case concerned an isolated act, not—as in Eichman's case—an activity extending over years, in which crime followed crime. Still, it was undeniable that he had always acted upon “superior orders,” and if the provisions of ordinary Israeli law had been applied to him, it would have been difficult indeed to impose the maximum penalty upon him. The truth of the matter is that Israeli law, in theory and practice, like the jurisdiction of other countries cannot but admit that the fact of “superior orders,” even when their unlawfulness is “manifest,” can severely disturb the normal working of a man's conscience.

This is only one example among many to demonstrate the inadequacy of the prevailing legal system and of current juridical concepts to deal with the facts of administrative massacres organized by the state apparatus. If we look more closely into the matter we will observe without much difficulty that the judges in all these trials really passed judgment solely on the basis of the monstrous deeds. In other words, they judged freely, as it were, and did not really lean on the standards and legal precedents with which they more or less convincingly sought to justify their decisions. That was already evident in Nuremberg, where the judges on the one hand declared that the “crime against peace” was the gravest of all the crimes they had to deal with, since it included all the other crimes, but on the other hand actually imposed the death penalty only on those defendants who had participated in the new crime of administrative massacre—supposedly a less grave offense than conspiracy against peace. It would indeed be tempting to pursue these and similar inconsistencies in a field so obsessed with consistency as jurisprudence. But of course that cannot be done here.

There remains, however, one fundamental problem, which was implicitly present in all these postwar trials and which must be mentioned here because it touches upon one of the central moral questions of all time, namely upon the nature and function of human judgment. What we have demanded in these trials, where the defendants had committed “legal” crimes, is that human beings be capable of telling right from wrong even when all they have to guide them is their own judgment, which, moreover, happens to be completely at odds with what they must regard as the unanimous opinion of all those around them. And this question is all the more serious as we know that the few who were “arrogant” enough to trust only their own judgment were by no means identical with those persons who continued to abide by old values, or who were guided by a religious belief. Since the whole of respectable society had in one way or another succumbed to Hitler, the moral maxims which determine social behavior and the religious commandments —“Thou shalt not kill!”—which guide conscience had virtually vanished. Those few who were still able to tell right from wrong went really only by their own judgments, and they did so freely; there were no rules to be abided by, under which the particular cases with which they were confronted could be subsumed. They had to decide each instance as it arose, because no rules existed for the unprecedented.

How troubled men of our time are by this question of judgment (or, as is often said, by people who dare “sit in judgment”) has emerged in the controversy over the present book, as well as the in many respects similar controversy over Hochhuth's The Deputy. What has come to light is neither nihilism nor cynicism, as one might have expected, but a quite extraordinary confusion over elementary questions of morality— as if an instinct in such matters were truly the last thing to be taken for granted in our time. The many curious notes that have been struck in the course of these disputes seem particularly revealing. Thus, some American literati have professed their naive belief that temptation and coercion are really the same thing, that no one can be asked to resist temptation. (If someone puts a pistol to your heart and orders you to shoot your best friend, then you simply must shoot him. Or, as it was argued—some years ago in connection with the quiz program scandal in which a university teacher had hoaxed the public—when so much money is at stake, who could possibly resist?) The argument that we cannot judge if we were not present and involved ourselves seems to convince everyone everywhere, although it seems obvious that if it were true, neither the administration of justice nor the writing of history would ever be possible. In contrast to these confusions, the reproach of self-righteousness raised against those who do judge is age-old; but that does not make it any the more valid. Even the judge who condemns a murderer can still say when he goes home: “And there, but for the grace of God, go I.” All German Jews unanimously have condemned the wave of coordination which passed over the German people in 1933 and from one day to the next turned the Jews into pariahs. Is it conceivable that none of them ever asked himself how many of his own group would have done just the same if only they had been allowed to? But is their condemnation today any the less correct for that reason?

The reflection that you yourself might have done wrong under the same circumstances may kindle a spirit of forgiveness, but those who today refer to Christian charity seem strangely confused on this issue too. Thus we can read in the postwar statement of the Evangelische Kirche in Deutschland, the Protestant church, as follows: “We aver that before the God of Mercy we share in the guilt for the outrage committed against the Jews by our own people through omission and silence.”^* It seems to me that a Christian is guilty before the God of Mercy if he repays evil with evil, hence that the churches would have sinned against mercy if millions of Jews had been killed as punishment for some evil they committed. But if the churches shared in the guilt for an outrage pure and simple, as they themselves attest, then the matter must still be considered to fall within the purview of the God of Justice.

This slip of the tongue, as it were, is no accident. Justice, but not mercy, is a matter of judgment, and about nothing does public opinion everywhere seem to be in happier agreement than that no one has the right to judge somebody else. What public opinion permits us to judge and even to condemn are trends, or whole groups of people—the larger the better—in short, something so general that distinctions can no longer be made, names no longer be named. Needless to add, this taboo applies doubly when the deeds or words of famous people or men in high position are being questioned. This is currently expressed in high-flown assertions that it is “superficial” to insist on details and to mention individuals, whereas it is the sign of sophistication to speak in generalities according to which all cats are gray and we are all equally guilty. Thus the charge Hochhuth has raised against a single Pope—one man, easily identifiable, with a name of his own—was immediately countered with an indictment of all Christianity. The charge against Christianity in general, with its two thousand years of history, cannot be proved, and if it could be proved, it would be horrible. No one seems to mind this so long as no person is involved, and it is quite safe to go one step further and to maintain: “Undoubtedly there is reason for grave accusations, but the defendant is mankind as a whole.” (Thus Robert Weltsch in Summa Iniuria, quoted above, italics added.)

Another such escape from the area of ascertainable facts and personal responsibility are the countless theories, based on non-specific, abstract, hypothetical assumptions—from the Zeitgeist down to the Oedipus complex—which are so general that they explain and justify every event and every deed: no alternative to what actually happened is even considered and no person could have acted differently from the way he did act. Among the constructs that “explain” everything by obscuring all details, we find such notions as a “ghetto mentality” among European Jews; or the collective guilt of the German people, derived from an ad hoc interpretation of their history; or the equally absurd assertion of a kind of collective innocence of the Jewish people. All these clichés have in common that they make judgment superfluous and that to utter them is devoid of all risk. And although we can understand the reluctance of those immediately affected by the disaster—Germans and Jews —to examine too closely the conduct of groups and persons that seemed to be or should have been unimpaired by the totality of the moral collapse—that is, the conduct of the Christian churches, the Jewish leadership, the men of the anti-Hitler conspiracy of July 20, 1944—this understandable disinclination is insufficient to explain the reluctance evident everywhere to make judgments in terms of individual moral responsibility.

Many people today would agree that there is no such thing as collective guilt or, for that matter, collective innocence, and that if there were, no one person could ever be guilty or innocent. This, of course, is not to deny that there is such a thing as political responsibility which, however, exists quite apart from what the individual member of the group has done and therefore can neither be judged in moral terms nor be brought before a criminal court. Every government assumes political responsibility for the deeds and misdeeds of its predecessor and every nation for the deeds and misdeeds of the past. When Napoleon, seizing power in France after the Revolution, said: I shall assume the responsibility for everything France ever did from Saint Louis to the Committee of Public Safety, he was only stating somewhat emphatically one of the basic facts of all political life. It means hardly more, generally speaking, than that every generation, by virtue of being born into a historical continuum, is burdened by the sins of the fathers as it is blessed with the deeds of the ancestors. But this kind of responsibility is not what we are talking about here; it is not personal, and only in a metaphorical sense can one say he feels guilty for what not he but his father or his people have done. (Morally speaking, it is hardly less wrong to feel guilty without having done something specific than it is to feel free of all guilt if one is actually guilty of something.) It is quite conceivable that certain political responsibilities among nations might some day be adjudicated in an international court; what is inconceivable is that such a court would be a criminal tribunal which pronounces on the guilt or innocence of individuals.

And the question of individual guilt or innocence, the act of meting out justice to both the defendant and the victim, are the only things at stake in a criminal court. The Eichmann trial was no exception, even though the court here was confronted with a crime it could not find in the lawbooks and with a criminal whose like was unknown in any court, at least prior to the Nuremberg Trials. The present report deals with nothing but the extent to which the court in Jerusalem succeeded in fulfilling the demands of justice.

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Index

Abromeit, Franz, 183, 196

Adenauer, Konrad, 13, 16, 17–18,19, 112, 119, 167

Adler, H. G., 119, 120, 134

Albania, 66

Aliyah Beth, 62, 225

Alsace-Lorraine, 101, 102

Alt-Aussee, 234, 236

Amsterdam, 12, 14, 118, 168

Anschluss 37, 42, 194

Antonescu, Ion, 176, 191, 192–93

Arabs, 9, 10, 12–13, 235, 292

Argentina, 22, 34, 47, 49, 52, 54, 78, 84, 102, 209–10, 222, 235, 237, 238, 239–40, 241–42, 247, 252, 264, 281

Armenian pogroms of 1915, 265

Arrow Cross men, 195, 201, 202

Assimilationists, 40, 41, 58, 59

Aufbau, Der, 27

Aurel v. Jüchen, 296

Auschwitz, 12, 14, 42, 51, 64, 71, 79, 80, 81, 86, 89, 90, 92, 108, 109, 112, 119, 138, 140, 147, 152, 156, 164, 166, 168, 170, 180, 189, 196, 200, 201, 213, 214, 223–24, 225, 226, 227, 264, 267

Austria, 12, 14, 28, 32, 34, 37, 42, 43–48, 61, 75, 88, 95, 101, 102, 138, 154, 161, 163, 194, 207, 220, 224, 227, 234, 236, 252

“Austrian Legion in exile” (in Bavaria), 34

Austro-Hungarian Empire, 181

Bach-Zelewski, Erich von dem, 15–16, 91, 281

Baden, 130, 155, 156

Badoglio, Pietro, 176, 183

Baeck, Leo, 119

Baer, Richard, 14, 281

Baky, Lászlo, 200

Bamm, Peter, 231–32

Baron, Salo W., 19, 96

Baror, Ya'akov, 120

Basler Nationalzeitung, 167

Bauer, Fritz, 17

Becher, Kurt, 138, 141–44, 147, 197, 199, 281

Beck, Ludwig, 101–02

Beckerle Adolf, 187–88

Beckmann, Heinz, 58

Belgium, 142, 162, 163, 165–67, 225, 238, 255

Belzek, 109

Ben-Gurion, David, 4–5, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 19, 20, 122, 209–10, 238–39, 241, 255, 271, 272

Ben-Zvi, Itzhak, 249

Bergen-Belsen, 86, 117, 123, 143, 156, 189, 208, 225

Berlin, 33, 39, 40, 44, 45, 62, 64, 65, 67, 72, 73, 89, 100, 104, 112, 115, 117, 118, 119, 120, 130, 147, 156, 165, 173, 185, 196, 199, 202, 216, 234, 244, 265, 266

Berlin, Treaty of, 190

Berthawerk 200

Best, Werner, 173, 174–75

Beth Ha'am, see House of the People

Beth Hamishpath, see House of Justice

Bettelheim, Bruno, 283

Bialystok, 213

Birnblat, Hirsch, 284

Blobel Paul, 207–08

Blomberg, Werner von, 217

Bohemia, 66, 79, 80, 82, 95, 154

Böhm, Adolf, 41, 209

Böhme, Franz, 23, 185

Bonnet, Georges, 76

Bordeaux, 163–64

Boris III, King of Bulgaria, 185, 187

Bormann, Martin, 158, 231, 258

Boycott Day (April 1, 1933), 59

Brack, Viktor, 84, 108

Bradfisch, Otto, 15, 127

Brand, Joel, 197, 198, 199

Brandt, Karl, 70

Brandt, Willy, 58

Bratislava, 81, 82, 144, 203, 204, 205, 259

Brauchitsch, Walter von, 212

Breslau, 200

Briand-Kellogg pact, 255

Brunner, Alois, 177, 188, 195, 205

Buber, Martin, 249, 251–52

Bucharest, 191, 192

Buchenwald, 11, 12

Budapest, 25, 26–30, 118, 124, 138, 140, 147, 194, 195, 196, 197–98, 200–01, 202, 204

Buenos Aires, 21, 235, 236, 238, 240, 241, 242, 265, 266

Bühler, Joseph, 113, 216

Bulgaria, 171, 182, 185–88, 196, 225, 230

Bureau IV, R.S.H.A., 31, 70, 73, 147, 207–08

Bureau 06, see Israeli police

Cairo, 13, 62

Canada, 103

Carmel, Mount, 62

Catholic Academy in Bavaria, 22

Center for Emigration of Austrian Jews (in Vienna), 44–48

Central Agency for the Investigation of Nazi Crimes (West German), 14

Central Association of German Citizens of Jewish Faith, 59

Central Conference of American Rabbis, 249

Central Jewish Council (of Budapest), 118, 196, 197, 198, 199

Chaim I, see Rumkowski, Chaim

Chelmno, 15, 87, 109, 225

Christian X, King of Denmark, 171, 174

Churchill, Winston, 257

Ciano, Galeazzo, 178

Cohn, Benno, 39

Communists, 38, 70, 95, 97, 177

Convention for the Protection of Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms, 250

Côte d'Azur, 165, 177

Court of Appeal, Israeli, see Supreme Court of Israel

Cracow, 217

Crimea, 206

Croatia, 142, 182, 183–84, 205

Czechoslovakia, 29, 66, 75, 79–82, 128, 145, 154, 181, 202, 226, 259

Czerniakow, Adam, 119

Dachau, 34, 130

Daluege, Kurt, 68

Dannecker, Theodor, 164, 167, 186, 187, 196

Danzig, 217

Davar, 9

de: for names combining this element, see that part of the name following “de”

Denmark, 152, 170, 171–75, 179, 187, 190, 225

Deputy, The, 295

Diary of Anne Frank, The, 251

Diaspora, 7, 8, 10, 80

Dicey, Albert Venn, 93

Dimitrov, Georgi, 188

Dinoor, Mr., 223 – 24

District Court of Jerusalem, 3, 10, 19, 21, 65, 115, 143, 154, 210, 211–19, 238, 244–48, 249

Dr. Strangelove, 97

Dostoevski, 52

Drancy, 164

Dreyfus Affair, 10

Drost, P. N., 260

Duckwitz, George F., 173

Dunand, Paul, 146

East, the, see Estonia; Latvia; Lithuania; Poland, Nazi; Ukraine; Warthegau; and White Russia

East Germany, 13, 166

Ebner (Gestapo officer), 51

Egypt, Eichmann in, 62

Egyptian National Assembly, 20

Eichmann Commando, 14, 196, 198, 201

Eichmann, Dieter (eldest son of [Otto] Adolf), 203

Eichmann family, members of, 25–26, 29, 137, 190, 221, 237, 243, 249

Eichmann, Karl Adolf ([Otto] Adolf father), 5, 21, 28, 29, 30, 114, 237

Eichmann, Maria, née Schefferling ([Otto] Adolf's mother), 21, 29, 30, 237

Eichmann, Ricardo Francisco Klement (fourth son of [Otto] Adolf), 237

Eichmann, Veronika (or Vera) Liebl ([Otto] Adolf's wife), 29, 236, 237, 242, 249

Einsatzgruppen (mobile killing units of the S.S.), the, 15, 16, 50, 67, 70, 71, 74, 77, 83, 85, 90, 94, 95, 96, 100, 105, 106, 107, 109, 127, 196, 210, 212, 216, 218, 232

Einsatzstab Rosenberg, 183

Einstein, Albert, 134

Eisenhower, Dwight D., 234

El Al Israel Airlines, 238, 241

Endre, Vitez Láslo, 26, 140, 199–200

Eppstein, Paul, 64, 120

Estonia, 154, 206

Europe Plan, 197, 198, 204

Evian Conference, 66

Ezekiel, 19

Falkenhausen, Alexander von, 166

Farben, I. G., 79

Farinacci, Roberto, 178

Fellenz, Martin, 16

Ferenczy, Lieutenant Colonel, 200

Fest, T. C., 282

Finland, 170, 255

Fiume, 178

Flanders, 166

France, Italian-occupied, 165, 176, 177

France, Nazi-occupied, 99, 132, 142, 163–65, 173, 177, 224

France, pre-World War II, 76, 172

France, World War II, see France, Italian-occupied; France, Nazi-occupied; and Vichy France

Franco, Francisco, 176

Franco-Prussian War, 101

Frank, Hans, 9, 73, 75, 133–34, 136, 206, 213, 216

Frank, Karl Hermann, 80

Fränkel, Wolfgang Immerwahr, 16

Frankfurter Rundschau, 18

Franz Joseph, Emperor of Austria, 88

Freemasonry, 32, 37, 70

Freudiger, Philip von, see Freudiger, Pinchas

Freudiger, Pinchas, 124, 125, 196, 197, 198

Fritsch, Werner von, 217

Fünten, Ferdinand aus der, 167

General Government of Poland, see Poland, Nazi

Geneva Convention, 255, 268

Genocide Convention (U.N.), 262

George, Stefan, 156

German Army and High Command, 18, 23–24, 83, 84, 97, 98, 100, 101–03, 105, 107, 127, 170, 172, 213, 217, 218, 230

German Civil Service, 38, 43, 112, 113, 114, 178

German Federal Republic, see West Germany

German Foreign Office, 13, 22, 23, 24, 47, 72, 85, 112, 113, 114, 139, 141, 151, 157, 160–61, 167, 170, 171, 176, 179, 186, 187, 192, 195, 199, 202, 204, 215

German Intelligence Service, 107, 187

German Ministry for Occupied Eastern Territories, 192, 206

German Ministry of Finance, 46, 115

German Ministry of the Interior, 72, 113, 128, 159, 183

German Ministry of Justice, 158

German Ministry of Transport, 115, 153, 164, 213

Germany (the Third Reich), see Germany, Nazi

Germany, East, see East Germany

Germany, Nazi, see under the names of the various arms and functionaries of the German government and organizations and leaders of the Nazi Party (German Army; German Foreign Office; Gestapo; Hitler, Adolf; Himmler, Heinrich; Nazi Party; S.S.; etc.)

Germany, post-Nazi, see East Germany and West Germany

Germany, pre-Nazi, see Weimar Republic

Germany, West, see West Germany and Adenauer, Konrad

Gestapo, 36, 60, 66, 68, 70, 97, 152, 159, 165, 173, 190, 206, 227–28, 246, 263

Gilbert, Gustave M., 211

Gillon, Philip, 7

Glickman Corporation, 5

Globke, Hans, 19, 72, 113, 128–29, 248

Globocnik, Odilo, 84, 86–87, 89, 107–08, 179

Glücks, Richard, 86, 152, 200

Goebbels, Joseph Paul, 22, 52, 180, 191

Goerdeler, Carl Friedrich, 99, 100, 101, 102 – 03, 104

Goldmann, Nahum, 271

Göring, Hermann Wilhelm, 44, 65, 83, 93, 133, 188, 202

Grand Mufti of Jerusalem, the ex-, 13, 19

Great Britain, 61, 288

Greece, 176, 185, 188, 190, 195, 225, 258

Greiser, Artur, 127, 206, 213

Grell, Horst, 47, 281

Grotius, 287

Gruber, Heinrich, 129, 131, 133

Grynszpan, Herschel, 227–28

Grynszpan, Zindel, 227, 228–30

Günther, Rolf, 69, 107, 146, 173, 196

Gurs, 130, 156

Gypsies, 23, 94, 96, 106, 158, 184, 188, 217, 244, 245, 276

Ha'avarah, 60

Haganah, 62

Hagen, Herbert, 62

Hague, The, 153, 167

Hague Convention, 255, 256

Haifa, 62

Halevi, Benjamin, 42, 69, 124, 143, 223, 230; see also District Court of Jerusalem

Haman, 19

Hamsun, Knut, 154

Hannecken, General von, 172 – 73

Hapsburg, Otto von, 194

Harsten, Wilhelm, 167

Hausner, Gideon, 3, 4, 5, 7, 8, 18, 19, 20, 26, 57, 94–95, 97, 120, 121, 122, 124–25, 153, 209, 211, 220, 222, 223, 224, 225, 227, 230, 239, 248, 259, 260–61, 267, 276, 283

Head Office for Reich Security (of the S.S.), see R.S.H.A.

Hebrew University in Jerusalem, 249

Hedin, Sven, 134, 154

Hegel, 20

Helldorf, Count, 100

“Heninger, Otto,” (pseud. of [Otto] Adolf Eichmann), 236

Herzl, Theodor, 40, 41, 57, 76, 209

Hesse, Fritz, 99

Heydrich, Reinhardt, 36, 44, 45, 47, 58, 65–66, 68, 69, 70, 72, 74–75, 77, 79–80, 81, 82, 83–84, 94, 95, 105–06, 107, 112, 113, 114, 133–34, 138, 155, 156, 167, 173, 178, 184, 204, 207, 210, 212, 216, 218

Higher S.S. and Police Leader Corps, 15, 16, 68, 70, 71, 84, 105, 139, 141, 151, 165, 167, 168, 213

Hilberg, Raul, 23, 71, 79, 107, 118, 133, 140, 187, 191, 282

Himmler, Heinrich, 13, 15, 25, 35, 36, 50, 51, 53, 57, 58, 68, 69, 70, 71, 74, 76, 79, 84, 86, 93, 94, 100, 104–05, 106, 107, 108, 112, 114,115, 116, 130, 133, 138, 139, 141, 142, 143, 144, 145, 146, 147, 148, 149, 151, 155–58, 159, 165, 168, 172, 193, 197, 198, 202, 210, 211, 213–14, 215, 216, 217, 231, 234–35, 291, 292

Hiroshima, 256

Hitler, Adolf, 13, 17, 20, 24, 37, 52, 57, 63, 67, 70, 72, 78, 83, 84, 93–94, 95, 96, 97, 98, 99, 100, 101–02, 103, 104, 105, 106, 107, 108, 112, 114, 126, 127, 128, 129, 133, 134, 136, 137, 139–40, 144, 147, 148, 149, 151, 153, 155, 156, 157, 160, 161, 176, 182, 191, 193, 210, 211, 216, 217, 244, 245, 253, 267, 273, 283, 284, 288, 290, 292, 295; conspiracy against, see July Conspiracy

Hlinka Guard, 202

Hochhuth, Rolf, 295, 297

Holland, see Netherlands, the

Horthy, Nikolaus von, 139, 140, 147, 176, 194, 197, 199, 200, 201

Höss, Rudolf, 14, 50–51, 71, 86, 89, 92, 200, 213

Hössbach protocol, 217

Hoter-Yishai, Aharon, 225–26

Höttl, Wilhelm, 184, 281

House of Justice, 3

House of the People, 4

Hubertusburg, Treaty of, 116

Hull, William, 252

Hungary, 15, 22, 26, 42, 47, 116, 118, 124, 129, 138–44, 147, 163, 174, 182, 189, 194–202, 205, 207, 213, 225, 226, 258

Hunsche, Otto, 14, 15, 196, 201, 235

Huppenkothen, Walter, 281

Husseini, Haj Amin el, see Grand Mufti of Jerusalem, the ex-

India, 288

International Red Cross, see Red Cross, International

Iron Guard, 191

Isère, 177

Israel, 3, 4, 5, 7, 8, 10, 13, 17, 20, 21, 193, 221, 222, 238, 239, 241–42, 250, 259–60, 261, 265, 266, 272, 286–87, 292; see also Ben Gurion, David; Hausner, Gideon; various headings under Israeli; Palestine, District Court of Jerusalem; and Supreme Court of Israel

Israeli Army, 62

Israeli Court of Appeal, see Supreme Court of Israel

Israeli law, 7, 8, 244–45, 248–49; see also Nazis and Nazi Collaborators (Punishment) Law of 1950

Israeli National Archive, see Yad Vashem

Israeli Opera, 284

Israeli Parliament, see Knesset, the

Israeli police, 75, 235; see also Less, Avner

Israeli Secret Service, 238, 239

Israeli Supreme Court, see Supreme Court of Israel

Italy, Fascist, 99, 139, 171, 176–80, 195, 225

Jackson, Robert H., 273–74

Jacob, E., 167

Jäger, Herbert, 33

Jahrreiss, Herman, 127

Jakob, Berthold, 263

Jansen, J. J.,17

Jaspers, Karl, 104, 252, 269–70

Jerusalem District Court, see District Court of Jerusalem

Jewish Agency for Palestine, 60, 125

Jewish Association in Berlin, 60, 64, 158

Jewish Brigade, 225

Jewish Councils, 74, 91, 115, 117, 118, 121, 123, 125, 166, 169, 188, 196, 214, 218, 282, 284

Jewish Frontier, 7

Jewish Relief Committee, see Relief and Rescue Committee, Jewish

Jodl, Alfred, 149

Joint Distribution Committee, American Jewish, 143, 198

Jong, Louis de, 125, 132, 169

Jüdische Rundschau Die, 59

July Conspiracy, 97–105, 166, 297

Jungfrontkämpfeverband, the, 32

Jüttner, Hans, 281

Kadow, Walter, 92

Kagan, Mrs. Raja, 214

Kaiser, the, see Wilhelm II of Germany

Kaltenbrunner, Ernst, 31, 32, 33, 34, 37, 68, 70, 72, 133, 139, 143–44, 145, 147, 160, 168, 234, 236

Kant, Immanuel, 135–37

Kappler, Herbert, 281

Kastner, Rudolf, 30, 42, 116–17, 118, 119, 132, 142, 145, 196, 197, 199

Katyn Forest, 256

Kennedy, John F., 6

Kersten, Felix, 57

Kfar Kassem, 292, 293–94

Kibbuzniks, 121

Killinger, Manfred von, 192–93

Kimche, Jon and David, 61

Kirchheimer, Otto, 127, 256, 257, 266

“Klement, Richard (or Ricardo),” (pseud. of [Otto] Adolf Eichmann), 236, 237, 238, 240

Klingenfuss, Karl, 264

Kluge, Gunther von, 100, 103

Knesset, the, 13, 238, 269, 272

Königsberg, 110

Koppe, Wilhelm, 15

Koretz, Chief Rabbi (of Salonika), 188

Kovner, Abba, 230, 231

Kovno, 121

Kreisau, 99

Kristallnacht, 39, 44, 65, 207, 227

Krug, Mark M., 119

Krüer, Friedrich-Wilhelm, 15

Krumey, Hermann, 14, 183, 196, 197, 281

Krupp Werke, 79, 200

Kube, Wilhelm, 96

Kulm, see Chelmno

“K-Zetnik,” see Dinoor, Mr.

Lahousen, Erwin, 216

Lamm, Hans, 40, 58

Landau, Moshe, 4, 6, 9, 48, 53, 56, 91, 95, 120, 124, 146, 208–09, 225, 227, 230, see also District Court of Jerusalem

Lankin, Doris, 8

Latvia, 154, 206

Lauterpacht, Hersch, 148

Laval, Pierre, 163, 164

Law for the Prevention and Punishment of Genocide, 269

League of Nations, 38

Lechfeld, 34

Lechthaler, Joseph, 15

Lehnsdorf, Hans von, 110–17

Leipzig, 99, 229

Lemberg, see Lwów

Less, Avner, 28, 29, 49–50, 81–82, 242

Leuschner, Wilhelm, 99

Ley, Robert, 52

Lichtenberg, Bernard, 130

Lidice, 207, 245–46, 248

Life, 22, 238

Linz, 28, 30, 31, 32, 68, 190, 236, 237, 243, 249

Lithuania, 154, 206, 225

Lódz, 87, 94, 119, 189, 207, 213

Lolita, 49

London Agreement of 1945, see Nuremberg Charter

Lösener, Bernhard, 128

Lowenherz, Josef, 30, 47, 63, 66, 224

Lubbe, Marinus van der, 188

Lublin, 79, 84, 86, 87, 89, 107, 155, 170, 179, 192

Ludin, Hans Elard, 204

Lunenburger Heide, 236

Luther, Martin, 23, 76, 151, 170

Luxembourg, 225

Lwów, 88–89

McCarthy, Mary, 283

Mach, Sano, 81, 202

Madagascar project, 33, 47, 76–78, 79, 103, 157

Magyars, 194

Majdanek, 109, 225

Mapai Party, 9

Marseilles, 177

Matteotti, Giacomo, 291

Maunz, Theodor, 24

Mauthausen, 12

Mein Kampf, 33

Mengele, Josef, 264

Menthon, François de, 257

Mercedes-Benz factory (in Argentina), 237

Merten, Max, 188–90, 281

Meyer, Franz, 64

Milch, Erhard, 133, 178

Mildenstein, von (S.S. officer), 40

Mildner, Rudolf, 152

Minsk, 12, 15, 88, 89, 94, 95, 96

Mogilev, 15

Moltke, Helmuth von, 99

Mombert, Alfred, 156

Monaco, 177

Monat, Der, 252, 269

Moravia, 66, 79, 80, 82, 95, 154

Motzkin, Leo, 265–66

Mulisch, Harry, 27, 28, 96, 282

Muller, Heinrich, 31, 57, 58, 65–66, 67, 70, 72, 87–88, 89, 114, 138, 139, 143–44, 145, 153, 160, 176, 179, 207–08, 215, 249

Münchener Illustrierten Zeitung, 36

Munich University, 104

Murmelstein, Benjamin, 120

Musmanno, Michael A., 129, 179, 210, 211, 212

Mussolini, Benito, 139, 176, 177, 178, 291

Nagasaki, 256

Napoleon, 101, 291, 298

National Archive of Israel, see Yad Vashem

National Archives (United States), 75

National Socialist Party, see Nazi Party

Nationalsozialistische Deutsche Ar-beiterpartei, or N.S.D.A.P., see Nazi Party

Nazi Party, 18, 29, 30, 31, 32, 33, 34, 36, 43, 58, 65, 69, 84, 99, 103, 112, 113, 114, 128, 129, 154, 159, 220, 246, 267, 277, 281

Nazis and Nazi Collaborators (Punishment) Law of 1950 (Israel), 21, 91–93, 220, 246, 254, 263, 272

Nebe, Arthur, 100

Negev, the, 250

Netherlands, the, 12, 45, 75, 125, 162, 163, 165 – 66, 167 – 70, 225, 268

Netherlands State Institute for War Documentation, 44, 125

Neubenschen, 228–29

Nice, 177

Nisko project, 33, 73, 75

Norway, 58, 170, 171, 225

Novak, Franz, 14, 196, 197, 213, 281

N.S.D.A.P., see Nazi Party

Nuremberg Charter, 254–59, 275

Nuremberg Laws of 1935, 7, 19, 30, 39, 40, 128, 267, 268, 294

Nuremberg Trials, 6–7, 9, 15, 16, 21, 22, 53, 70, 72, 84, 91, 93, 104, 110, 113, 127, 129, 133, 135, 141, 143, 146, 149, 152, 159, 173, 175, 185, 196, 203, 207–08, 210, 211, 212, 213, 216, 220, 221, 235, 236, 246, 253, 254–59, 273, 274–75, 276, 290, 298

Oberösterreichischen Elektrobau Company, 29

Odessa, 191, 267

ODESSA (organization of former S.S. men), 236

Olshan, Itzhak, 248

Oppenheim-Lauterpacht, 148

Organisation Todt, 40

Palestine, 28, 41, 47, 59, 60, 61, 62, 63, 65, 125, 193, 198, 225, 226

Paris, 153, 164, 173, 186, 196, 227, 265, 266, 267

Passau, 34

Pavelic, Ante, 183

Pearlman, Moshe, 235

Pellepoix, Darquier de, 163

Pendorf, Robert, 86, 117, 282

Pétain, Henri Philippe, 163, 176

Petlyura, Simon, 265, 267

Philippsohn, Professor, 134

Pohl, Oswald, 68, 79, 86, 152

Poland, Nazi, 9, 15, 16, 67, 73, 74, 75, 93, 95, 113, 117, 122, 123, 130, 132, 139, 169, 198, 204, 206, 208, 212–13, 215, 216–19, 225, 226, 231, 244, 245

Poland, pre-World War II, 37, 43, 66, 76, 155

Poliakov, Léon, 152, 221

Portugal, 142, 200

Poznan, 217, 229

Prague, 44, 66, 67, 73, 79, 81, 95, 146, 167, 181, 199, 224, 244, 259

Quisling, Vidkun, 117, 170

Rademacher, Franz, 22–23, 24

Räder, Erich, 217

Radom District (of Poland), 74

Rajakowitsch, Erich, 44–45, 75, 167, 168

Rath, Ernst vom, 227 – 28

Ratnizi, the, 185

Rauter, Hans, 167

Raveh, Yitzhak, 124, 136; see also District Court of Jerusalem

Reck-Malleczewen, Friedrich P.,102, 103–04, 110

Red Cross, International, 82, 85, 146, 226

Reich Center for Jewish Emigration (in Berlin), 65, 67, 74

Reich Health Department, 108

Reichsbank, 115

Reichssicherheitshauptamt (Head Office for Reich Security of the S.S.), see R.S.H.A.

Reichstag Fire, 188

Reichsvereinigung, see Jewish Association in Berlin

Reichsvertretung, 39–40, 60, 64

Reitlinger, Gerald, 36, 83, 107, 152, 160, 177, 221, 282

Relief and Rescue Committee, Jewish, in Bratislava, 144, 204, 205; in Hungary, 197, 198, 199

Reynolds, Quentin, 223

Rheinischer Merkur, 17, 22, 58

Rhineland, 37, 92, 94

Ribbentrop, Joachim von, 76, 104–05, 112, 151, 210

Richter, Gustav, 14, 192–93

Riga, 12, 94, 95, 206

Ritter, Gerhard, 98, 99, 100, 103

Roatta, General, 177

Rogat, Yosal, 271, 277

Röhm, Ernst, 15, 40, 192

Roman Empire, 153–54, 178, 271

Rome, 176, 179, 180

Rommel, Erwin, 100

Romoser, George K., 99

Roosevelt, Franklin D., 201

Rosen, Pinhas, 263, 269, 272

Rosenberg, Alfred, 183, 193, 206

Rothschild Palais, 64

Rousset, David, 11

R.S.H.A. (Head Office for Reich Security of the S.S.), 24, 31, 36, 68, 70, 72, 74, 76, 79, 84, 100, 107, 133, 138, 139, 141, 144, 153, 155, 158, 167, 168, 177, 187, 188, 205, 208, 213, 215, 217; see also Bureau IV, R.S.H.A.; and Subsection IV-B-4, R.S.H.A.

Rumania, 14, 66, 124, 138, 154, 163, 176, 180, 182, 185, 190–93, 198, 201, 225

Rumanian Legion, 191

Rumkowski, Chaim, 119

Russia and Russian, see under Soviet

Russian Empire, 181

Russia, White, see White Russia

S.A. (Sturm Abteilung), 38, 40, 97, 192

Saarpfalz, the, 130, 155

Sabri, Hussain Zulficar, 20

Sachsenhausen, 130

St. Germain, Treaty of, 182

Salonika, 168, 188, 190

Salzberger, Charlotte, 120

Salzburg, 31

Sassen, Willem S., 22, 48, 54, 57, 126, 222, 238, 281

Saturday Evening Post, 26, 259

Saukel, Fritz, 93

Savoie, 177

Schäfer, Emanuel, 184, 185

Schellenberg, Walter, 187, 212

Schlageter, Leo, 92

Schlaraffia, 32–33, 37

Schmidt, Anton, 230, 231, 232

Schmitt, Carl, 145

Schüle, Erwin, 14

Schutzstaffeln see S.S.

Schwartzbard, Shalom, 265–67

S.D. (Sicherheitsdienst, or Security Service of the Reichsführer S.S.), the, 35, 36, 68, 74, 79, 85, 159, 187, 246

Sebba family, 30

Security Service of the Reichsführer S.S., see S.D.

Seidl, Siegfried, 196

Sephardic Jews, 168, 190

Serbia, 23, 24, 181–82, 184–85

Servatius, Robert, 3, 4, 9, 19, 20, 21–22, 23, 34, 56, 62, 69–70, 90, 93, 94, 108, 120, 122, 131, 145, 164, 208, 209, 221–22, 238–39, 241, 243–44, 247–48, 250

Sevastopol, 232

Shimoni, Yad, 238

Siberia, 52

Sicherheitsdienst, see S.D.

Siemens-Schuckart Werke, 79

Silber, Gershon, 228

Six, Alfred, 281

Slawik, Alfred Joseph, 281

Slovakia, 81, 82, 85, 138, 139, 142, 144, 174, 181, 195, 196, 198, 202 – 05, 225

Slutsk, 15

Smolensk, 256

Smolevichi, 15

Sobibor, 109, 170

Sodom and Gomorrah, 278

Sofia, 186, 187

Sofia, the Chief Rabbi of, 187

Solingen, 27

South America, 103, 160

Soviet Army, 33, 72, 111, 138, 140,183, 188, 193, 195, 201, 202, 205, 234

Soviet Intelligence service, 238

Soviet prisoners of war, Nazi-held, 95, 158

Soviet Union, 15, 53, 73, 76, 78, 83, 94, 96, 100–01, 106, 107, 109, 122, 130, 138–39, 163, 184, 185, 191, 225, 226, 255–56, 258

Spain, 156–57, 168, 176, 177, 200

Speer, Albert, 40

S.S. (Schutzstaffeln), 11–12, 15, 16, 28, 29, 30, 31, 32, 33, 34, 35, 37, 40, 49, 50, 60, 68–69, 71, 75, 79, 84, 91–92, 95, 99, 101, 103, 104, 105, 107, 109, 114, 115, 119, 121, 123, 129, 139–40, 141–42, 143, 144–45, 151, 158, 159, 165, 167, 174, 178, 187, 190, 197, 203, 205, 212, 214, 220, 229, 236, 238, 246, 287; see also Einsatzgruppen (mobile killing units); R.S.H.A. (Head Office for Reich Security); S.D. (Security Service of the Reichs-fiihrer S.S.); and Bureau IV, R.S.H.A.; Subsection IV-B-4, R.S.H.A.

S.S. Wirtschafts-Verwaltungshauptamt, see W.V.H.A.

Stahlecker, Franz, 73–74, 75, 79

Stalin, Joseph, 176

Stalingrad, 99, 116

Stauffenberg, Klaus von, 99

Stephan, Metropolitan of Sofia, 187

Stern, Der, 22, 238

Stern, Samuel, 197

Stettin, 155

Stone, Julius, 258

Storey, Robert G., 254

Storfer, Bertold, 50–52

Storm Troopers see S.A.

Strauss, Franz-Josef, 58

Streicher, Julius, 30–31, 39, 69, 80, 258

Stuckart, Wilhelm, 113, 129, 159

Sturm Abteilung, see S.A.

Stürmer, Der, 30

Suarez (suburb of Buenos Aires), 237

Suarez, Georges, 266

Subsection IV-B-4, R.S.H.A., 31, 70, 72, 147, 155, 158, 188, 217

Sudetenland, 101, 102

Summa Iniuria, 296, 297

Supreme Court of Israel (Court of Appeal), 8, 26, 69, 143, 147, 210, 222, 238, 248–49, 284

Sweden, 170–71, 172, 174, 200

Switzerland, 30, 85, 129–30, 143, 156, 167, 172, 177, 200, 237, 263

Szalasi, Ferenc, 201

Sztojai, Dome, 176

Talaat Bey, 265

Taylor, Telford, 261

Tehlirian (Armenian assassin), 265, 266

Thadden, Eberhard von, 151, 281

Theresienstadt, 47, 60, 64, 65, 80–81, 82, 85, 117, 119–20, 123, 125, 133, 134, 145, 146, 156, 158, 159, 173, 174, 196, 225, 226, 234, 244, 284

Thierack, Otto, 157–58

Tiso, Josef, 202, 205

Tohar, Zvi, 238

Torres, Henri, 266

Tramways and Electricity Company, 28, 29

Treblinka, 15, 87, 89, 109, 187, 225

Trianon, Treaty of, 182, 195

Tuka, Vojtek, 204

Turner, Harald, 23, 184, 185

Twenty-five Points, 43

Uebelhör, Regierunsspräsident, 94

Uganda, 76

Ukraine, 154, 206, 265

Ulbricht, Walter, 13

Unit 1005, 207–08

United Nations, 262, 270, 271

United States, 98–99, 215

Upper Austrian Elektrobau Company, 29

U.S.S.R., see Soviet Union

Utashe, the, 183, 184

Vaadat Ezra va Hazalah, 198

Vabres, Donnedieu de, 257, 274

Vacuum Oil Company, 28 – 29, 30, 31, 33, 34

Valiant, Xavier, 162

Vatican, the, 85, 187, 196, 200, 204

Veesenmayer, Edmund, 139–40, 141, 147, 195, 199, 201–02, 205, 281,

Versailles, Treaty of, 33, 37, 182

Vichy France, 130, 155, 162–65, 167, 169, 172, 176

Vienna, 30, 34, 42, 43, 46, 56, 60, 63, 65, 73, 74, 75, 85, 117, 120, 137, 167, 196, 199, 200, 244

Vilna, 121

vom, von, von dem: for names combining one of these elements, see that part of the name follow ing the element

Wächter, Otto, 179

Wade, E. C. S., 93

Wagner, Gerhard, 108

Walloons, 166

Wandervogel, 32

Wannsee Conference, 53, 112, 129, 133, 137, 151, 159, 160, 170, 216

Warsaw, 12, 15, 73, 107, 118, 119, 121, 213, 215

Wartenburg, York von, 100

Warthegau, the, 87, 95–96, 127, 154, 164, 206, 213, 217

Wechtenbruch, Dieter, 145 146

Weimar Republic, 38, 43, 185

Weisenborn, Günther, 104

Weiss (of the Austrian Vacuum Oil Company), 29–30

Weiss, Manfred, steel combine, 142

Weizmann, Chaim, 122, 125, 248

Weizsäcker, Ernst von, 171

Weltsch, Robert, 59, 297

West Germany, 13–14, 15, 16, 17, 24, 34, 58, 128, 162, 248, 250, 264, 286; see also Adenauer, Konrad

Western Regions of Poland, see the Warthegau

White Russia, 15, 87, 107, 206

Wilhelm I, 101

Wilhelm II of Germany (the Kaiser), 255

Winkelmann, Otto, 139 – 40, 141, 281

Wirth, Christian, 87

Wisliceny, Dieter, 124, 144, 145, 146, 188, 190, 195, 196, 197, 198, 203, 204, 205, 213, 236

Wolff, Karl, 15

World Jewish Congress, 271

W.V.H.A. (S.S. Wirtschafts-Verwal-tungshauptamt), 68, 71, 79, 81, 86, 152, 200

Yad Vashem, 44, 207, 221, 222, 225, 230

Yahil, Leni, 179

Young Men's Christian Association, 31

Yugoslavia, 22, 23, 61, 138, 176, 178, 182–85, 196, 198, 225, 245, 258

Zagreb, 183

Zbaszyn, 43, 229

Zeisel, H., 261 – 62

Zionism, 10, 40–41, 58, 75

Zionists and Zionist organizations, 20, 30, 39, 40, 41, 57, 58 – 60, 61, 63, 65, 122, 143, 197, 198, 199, 200, 204, 209, 266

Zopf, Willi, 14, 167, 168

Zuckerman, Itzhak, 122

Zuckerman, Zivia Lubetkin, 121–22

^* Quoted from the minister Aurel v. Jüchen in an anthology of critical reviews of Hochhuth's play—Summa Iniuria, Rowohl Verlag, p. 195.