David Cesarani
The Argentine Connection
Eichmann before Jerusalem: The Unexamined Life of a Mass Murderer
By Bettina Stangneth (Translated by Ruth Martin)
The Bodley Head 579pp £25 order from our bookshop
Adolf Eichmann’s notoriety waxed as his influence waned. During the Nuremberg Trials, a succession of defendants and witnesses fingered him in absentia. It became highly convenient to displace responsibility for the persecution of the Jews onto his shoulders. Contrary to what many historians (including myself) have assumed, in the immediate postwar years Eichmann was targeted by Jewish organisations hunting Nazi criminals and wanted by both the British and the Americans. This was partly why he decided to flee his hideout in northern Germany in 1950 and make for Argentina.
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