German intelligence knew Adolf Eichmann was hiding out in Argentina!

[Peter Lemkin]

AFP | January 9, 2011

BERLIN, GERMANY German intelligence knew Nazi war criminal Adolf Eichmann was hiding out in Argentina eight years before Israeli agents kidnapped him in 1960, the Bild daily cited newly released documents as saying.

"SS colonel Eichmann … is living in Argentina under the false name of Clemens. The editor of the Der Weg' German newspaper in Argentina knows E.'s address," according to a 1952 document, Bild reported on Saturday.

It took another six years for Germany to inform the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) in the United States, according to CIA documents made public in 2006, the German newspaper said.

In 1960, Mossad agents kidnapped Eichmann, one of the main executors of Adolf Hitler's "final solution", in Buenos Aires. He was brought to Israel for trial, where he was convicted and hanged in 1962.

The release of the documents came after the newspaper successfully sued the German government in the country's highest court to force it to release them, Bild said.

The paper cited historian Bettina Stangneth, who is due to publish a book about Eichmann in April, as calling the find a "sensation."

The American Gathering of Holocaust Survivors and their Descendants called claims that Eichmann's whereabouts were known "disturbing."

"Equally disturbing is the continued unwillingness of the BND to release the documents which could shed further light on this sad history and other questions related to the fate of Nazis after the War," a statement said.

"The question must be asked whether (German intelligence service) BND files will reveal assistance and aid given to these Nazis to escape and evade justice? History and memory demand the answer to this question." AFP

http://news.asiaone.com/News/AsiaOne%2BN...57239.html

[David Guyatt]

I bet the State Department and Foreign Office also knew that too.

And, of course, the BND, during it founding years, was composed entirely of Nazis and was for Nazis, and so their refusal to add to the picture can comes as no surprise.

[Magda Hassan]

Declassified BND Documents: Eichmann Asked Adenauer for Okay to Return to Germany in 1956

14th April 2011


" … Declassified intelligence reports in Germany and the United States showed that Adenauer and the West German government feared that if Eichmann returned to Germany, he would jeopardize the status of many ex-Nazis who were working in all walks of life in German society and the government. … "

By BENJAMIN WEINTHAL
JERUSALEM POST | April 13, 2011

"The time has come for me to step out of the cloak of anonymity and present myself," wrote Eichmann to Chancellor Konrad Adenauer.

BERLIN Four years before Israeli intelligence agents captured Adolf Eichmann in 1960, the main architect of the murder of Europe's Jews sought to return to post-Nazi Germany.
"The time has come for me to step out of the cloak of anonymity and present myself. Name Adolf Eichmann. Occupation SS Obersturmbannfuehrer," wrote Eichmann in a letter to Germany's first post-Holocaust Chancellor Konrad Adenauer in 1956, according to a report in Monday's mass circulation Bild newspaper.
Though the Adenauer government knew that Eichmann was hiding in Argentina, the West German government did not notify the Israeli government.
Hamburg historian Dr. Bettina Stangneth discovered the previous unpublished Eichmann letter to Adenauer in a German archive. She published her findings in a new book on Eichmann to be released next Monday. Other material obtained and published by Bild earlier this year showed that West Germany knew Eichmann's whereabouts as early as 1952.
In the letter, written while he worked as rabbit farmer in the Argentine village of Joaquín Gorina, Eichmann wrote, "I do not know how long fate will allow me to live. I do know, however, that someone must be allowed to explain to the coming generation about what happened. There should be an explanation. I had to steer and lead large parts of this complex in those years."
The word "complex" in his letter was Eichmann's euphemism for the annihilation of 6 million Jews, the extermination of Roma and Sinti, developmentally disabled persons, political prisoners and gays.
Declassified intelligence reports in Germany and the United States showed that Adenauer and the West German government feared that if Eichmann returned to Germany, he would jeopardize the status of many ex-Nazis who were working in all walks of life in German society and the government.
While Adenauer was not a member of the Nazi party, he recruited top-level Nazis to work in his West German administration. According to critics, Adenauer used anti- Semitic language in post-War Germany to describe Jews and justify his country's payments of compensation to Holocaust survivors as well as gain an entry card back into Western democratic civilization.
Adenauer said, "[the crimes] had to be expiated … if we wished once more to gain respect and standing among the world's nations. However the power held by the Jews, even today, especially in America, should not be underestimated."
The Bild newspaper quoted Dr. Tobias Herrmann, the director of the Federal Archives in Ludwigsburg, saying "Sadly in the 50s there was not a great deal of interest in particularly pursuing Nazi war criminals in Germany. Many judges and lawyers of the Nazi period worked in the post-war Federal Republic too, and weren't interested in pursuing their old comrades in the police and SS."
The leniency and indifference toward Nazi war criminals during the post-War period in Germany helped to explain Eichmann's belief, expressed in the letter, that he would not serve a long prison sentence in the Federal Republic.
http://www.jpost.com/International/Artic...?id=216371

[Peter Lemkin]

Thousands of Germans Knew of Eichmann's Postwar Whereabouts
21st April 2011


" … Thousands of Germans, including people in the intelligence agencies, were aware of Eichmann's whereabouts as early as the 1950s. According to a memorandum by the German Embassy staff in Buenos Aires, at least 300 employees who worked alongside Eichmann in a factory knew the real identity of the man who lived under the name Ricardo Klement. … "

In Newly Released Tape, Eichmann Heard Boasting About his Role in Holocaust

By Ofer Aderet
Haaretz | April 3, 2011


Photo by: AP Photo

As Israel marks the 50th anniversary of the trial of Adolf Eichmann, new documents and witness accounts are coming to light in Germany that reveal more details about the postwar life of the Nazi war criminal right up to his capture by the Mossad.

Over the weekend, the German weekly Der Spiegel published a transcript of a tape recording in which Eichmann, who lived in Argentina after the war, can be heard bragging to his friends about his role in the Holocaust. Eichmann is even heard expressing regret for not being able to complete the task.

"We didn't do our work correctly," he said. "There was more that could have been done."

In the recording, Eichmann, who masterminded the expulsion and transfer of millions of Jews from their homes to the death camps, contradicts statements he later made in his defense during his 1961 trial in Jerusalem. Eichmann was found guilty and executed.

At his trial, Eichmann's attorneys claimed that he was a low-level cog in the Nazi system who simply followed orders. "It was not my desire to kill people," he said. "The mass murder is the fault of the political leaders only."

Yet Eichmann is heard on the tape saying: "I was no ordinary recipient of orders. If I had been one, I would have been a fool. Instead, I was part of the thought process. I was an idealist."

The conversation is purported to have taken place in a Buenos Aires suburb between Eichmann and two friends who were also former Nazis. The recording is being kept in the German Federal Archives.

The recording is one of thousands of testimonies that have been released in recent months as part of a media campaign urging German intelligence agencies to declassify more than 4,500 documents connected to the Eichmann case.

After the Holocaust, thousands of Nazis, including senior officials who held prominent positions in the killing apparatus, escaped to Argentina. Eichmann was one of them.

The newly revealed documents confirm that thousands of Germans, including people in the intelligence agencies, were aware of Eichmann's whereabouts as early as the 1950s. According to a memorandum by the German Embassy staff in Buenos Aires, at least 300 employees who worked alongside Eichmann in a factory knew the real identity of the man who lived under the name Ricardo Klement.

Eichmann, who reunited with his wife and children in Argentina, was a popular figure in the Nazi community that had found refuge in the country. He was known to have met Josef Mengele, the notorious Angel of Death who conducted experiments on inmates at Auschwitz, at a Buenos Aires coffee shop.

On another occasion, Eichmann attended a going-away party for Johann von Leers, an anti-Semitic polemicist and Nazi propagandist who fled to Egypt.

Another declassified dispatch revealed that Eichmann took part in a ceremony honoring Argentine army colonel Juan Peron, who would later become president. Peron was known to have helped a number of Nazis find shelter in Argentina.

Two of Eichmann's closest friends during his time in Argentina were pro-Nazi journalists. His circle later expanded to include an assistant to Heinrich Himmler, the former head of the SS and Gestapo.

German and other intelligence agencies monitored Eichmann's activities and received information on his whereabouts in the 1950s, yet they did not act to apprehend him.

Newly released documents from the German Foreign Ministry's archives also show that the German Embassy in Argentina even provided passports to Eichmann's children so they could visit Germany in 1954.

http://www.haaretz.com/print-edition/new...t-1.353723