Adolf Eichmann Quotes (62 quotes) | Quotes of famous people

I am convinced, Herr Hauptmann, [Eichmann is referring to his interrogator, Avner Less] I know it sounds odd coming from me, but I'm convinced that if it had been up to Müller it wouldn't have happened.
Source: Eichmann Interrogated (1983), p. 84.

Business , Silence , Time , Housing

“I balk inwardly at saying that we did anything wrong”

Adolf Eichmann

Argentina Audiotapes (1957)
Context: I, "the cautious bureaucrat," that was me, yes indeed. But... This cautious bureaucrat was attended by a... a fanatical warrior, fighting for the freedom of my blood, which is my birthright, and I say here, just as I have said to you before: your louse that nips you, Comrade Sassen, does not interest me. My louse under my collar interests me. I will squash it. This is the same when it comes to my people.... what benefits my people is a sacred order and a sacred law for me.... I have no regrets! I am certainly not going to bow down to that cross!... it would be too easy... for me to pretend that a Saul has become a Paul. I tell you, Comrade Sassen, I cannot do that. That I cannot do, because I am not willing to do it, because I balk inwardly at saying that we did anything wrong.

“These Jew-treks, as I called them, were carried out in the most elegant way…. I can tell you today that I saw two bodies on the whole route, they were old Jews - it's clear, you can't make an omelette without breaking eggs. And were no eggs broken when much larger contingents of Germans marched from the East after 1945?”

Adolf Eichmann

Argentina Audiotapes (1957)

Way

Adolf Eichmann Quotes

“From my childhood, obedience was something I could not get out of my system. When I entered the armed services at the age of 27, I found being obedient not a bit more difficult than it had been during my life to that point. It was unthinkable that I would not follow orders.”

Adolf Eichmann

Die Welt memoirs (1999)

Life , Age , Childhood

“Now that I look back, I realize that a life predicated on being obedient and taking orders is a very comfortable life indeed. Living in such a way reduces to a minimum one's own need to think.”

Adolf Eichmann

Die Welt memoirs (1999)

Life , Way , Thinking

“After the speech he looked at us ironically and added softly: "Otherwise you would die". The words were icy but the tone like velvet, almost friendly.”

Adolf Eichmann

Benjamin Murmelstein, Theresienstadt: Eichmanns Vorzeige-Ghetto, .

“I knew that in this 'promised land' of South America I had a few good friends, to whom I could say openly, freely and proudly that I am Adolf Eichmann, former SS Obersturmbannführer.”

Adolf Eichmann

Meine Flucht, a memoir written by Eichmann in 1961, as quoted in Eichmann Before Jerusalem by Bettina Stangneth (2015).

“As I sometimes said to the important Jews, when I had them, something like: 'Well then, do you know where you are? You're with the Czar of the Jews. Don't you know that, didn't you see the Pariser Tageblatt?!”

Adolf Eichmann

Argentina Audiotapes (1957)

“I have them completely in hand here, they dare not take a step without first consulting me.”

Adolf Eichmann

Letter to Herbert Hagen about the Jewish community in Vienna (1938), as quoted in Eichmann Before Jerusalem: The Unexamined Life of a Mass Murderer by Bettina Stangneth (2015).

“I am certain, however, that those responsible for the murder of millions of Germans will never be brought to justice.”

Adolf Eichmann

Die Welt memoirs (1999)

Justice

“After the [Wannsee] conference, Heydrich, Müller and myself sat cozily around the fireplace. We had drinks. We had brandy. We sang songs. After a while, we got up on chairs and drank a toast. Then we got up on the tables and went round and round. On the chairs. On the tables. Then we sat around peacefully, giving ourselves a rest after so many exhausting hours.”

Adolf Eichmann

As quoted by Alan Rosenthal, "Eichmann, Revisited" in The Jerusalem Post (20 April 2011) http://m.jpost.com/Jerusalem-Report/Jewish-World/Eichmann-Revisited.

Drink

“It is hard, what I have told you, I know, and I will be condemned for being so hard in my phrasing, but I cannot tell you anything else, for it is the truth! Why should I deny it?”

Adolf Eichmann

Argentina Audiotapes (1957)

Truth

“While we were working with the Jews to solve the Jewish question, the others used the Jews as a means to an end, to milk them for their own ends…. And this is why there are still a whole lot of Jews enjoying life today who ought to have been gassed.”

Adolf Eichmann

Argentina Audiotapes (1957)

Life , Question

“Over the years I learned which hooks to use to catch which fish.”

Adolf Eichmann

Audiotape recording of Eichmann in Argentina (1957), as quoted in Eichmann Before Jerusalem: The Unexamined Life of a Mass Murderer by Bettina Stangneth (2015). ISBN 978-0307950161.

Fish , Learning

“I witnessed the gruesome workings of the machinery of death; gear meshed with gear, like clockwork. It was the biggest and most enormous dance of death of all times.”

Adolf Eichmann

CBC report (2000)

Death , Time , Dance

“In Hungary in 1944, Eichmann introduced himself this way: "Do you know who I am? I am a bloodhound!"”

Adolf Eichmann

Eichmann Before Jerusalem by Bettina Stangneth (2015).

Way

“I loved playing an open hand against all the Jewish political functionaries … For me, 'open hand' is a winged word.”

Adolf Eichmann

As quoted in Eichmann Before Jerusalem by Bettina Stangneth (2015).

Love

“Müller said to me once, if we'd had fifty Eichmanns, we'd have won the war for sure. And I was proud. That should have given you an insight into my interior - since you don't know me, not from within, and that is important.”

Adolf Eichmann

Argentina Audiotapes (1957)

War

“My political sentiments inclined toward the left and emphasized the socialist aspects every bit as much as the nationalist ones.”

Adolf Eichmann

Eichmann's memoir False Gods, quoted in Gotz Aly, Hitler's Beneficiaries. How the Nazis Bought the German People (London: Verso, 2007), pp. 16-17.

“It was actually an achievement that was never matched before or since.”

Adolf Eichmann

About the deportation of more than 400 000 Jews from Hungary in several weeks as quoted in Eichmann Before Jerusalem by Bettina Stangneth (2015).

“Obeying an order was the most important thing to me. It could be that is in the nature of the German.”

Adolf Eichmann

Die Welt memoirs (1999)

Nature

“Because I have seen hell, death and the devil, because I had to watch the madness of destruction, because I was one of the many horses pulling the wagon and couldn't escape left or right because of the will of the driver, I now feel called upon and have the desire to tell what happened.”

Adolf Eichmann

CBC report (2000)

Death , Feeling , Hell , Horse

“During cross-examination, prosecutor Hausner asked Eichmann if he considered himself guilty of the murder of millions of Jews. Eichmann replied: "Legally not, but in the human sense … yes, for I am guilty of having deported them". When Hausner produced as evidence a quote by Eichmann in 1945 stating: "I will leap into my grave laughing because the feeling that I have five million human beings on my conscience is for me a source of extraordinary satisfaction", Eichmann countered the claim saying that he was referring only to "enemies of the Reich".”

Adolf Eichmann

Great World Trials; The Adolph Eichmann Trial 1961 (1997) pages 332-337.

Feeling , Quotes , Sense

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

Adolf Eichmann

Before his execution in Jerusalem (1 June 1962), as quoted in Becoming Eichmann: Rethinking the Life, Crimes, and Trial of a "Desk Murderer" by David Cesarani (2006), p. 321. ISBN 978-0-306-81539-3.

Men , God , Fate , Family

“The war with the Soviet Union began in June 1941, I think. And I believe it was two months later, or maybe three, that Heydrich sent for me. I reported. He said to me: "The Führer has ordered physical extermination." These were his words. And as though wanting to test their effect on me, he made a long pause, which was not at all his way. I can still remember that. In the first moment, I didn't grasp the implications, because he chose his words so carefully. But then I understood. I didn't say anything, what could I say? Because I'd never thought of a … of such a thing, of that sort of violent solution. … Anyway, Heydrich said: "Go and see Globocnik, the Führer has already given him instructions. Take a look and see how he's getting on with his program. I believe he's using Russian anti-tank trenches for exterminating the Jews." As ordered, I went to Lublin, located the headquarters of SS and Police Commander Globocnik, and reported to the Gruppenführer. I told him Heydrich had sent me, because the Führer had ordered the physical extermination of the Jews. … Globocnik sent for a certain Sturmbannführer Höfle, who must have been a member of his staff. We went from Lublin to, I don't remember what the place was called, I get them mixed up, I couldn't say if it was Treblinka or some other place. There were patches of woods, sort of, and the road passed through — a Polish highway. On the right side of the road there was an ordinary house, that's where the men who worked there lived. A captain of the Ordnungspolizei welcomed us. A few workmen were still there. The captain, which surprised me, had taken off his jacket and rolled up his sleeves, somehow he seemed to have joined in the work. They were building little wooden shacks, two, maybe three of them; they looked like two- or three-room cottages. Höfle told the police captain to explain the installation to me. And then he started in. He had a, well, let's say, a vulgar, uncultivated voice. Maybe he drank. He spoke some dialect from the southwestern corner of Germany, and he told me how he had made everything airtight. It seems they were going to hook up a Russian submarine engine and pipe the exhaust into the houses and the Jews inside would be poisoned.
I was horrified. My nerves aren't strong enough … I can't listen to such things… such things, without their affecting me. Even today, if I see someone with a deep cut, I have to look away. I could never have been a doctor. I still remember how I visualized the scene and began to tremble, as if I'd been through something, some terrible experience. The kind of thing that happens sometimes and afterwards you start to shake. Then I went to Berlin and reported to the head of the Security Police.”

Adolf Eichmann

Source: Eichmann Interrogated (1983), p. 75 - 76.

Men , War , Way , Thinking

“On the Lüneberg Heath, it was near where Bergen-Belsen had been, and everything round there smelled of garlic and it was all Jews, because who was buying anything at that time? Only the Jews, and then I said to myself, I, I who was bargaining with Jews over wood and eggs, I was amazed and astounded, and I thought you see - goddammit! They all should have been killed, and there those fellas are, doing deals with me, you know?”

Adolf Eichmann

Argentina Audiotapes (1957)

Time

“Regret is something for little children.”

Adolf Eichmann

During cross-examination at his trial, session 96, July 13, 1961, as quoted in Eichmann Before Jerusalem by Bettina Stangneth (2015).

Children

“I have to forge my weapons according to the strength of the resistance.”

Adolf Eichmann

Argentina Audiotapes (1957)

“As my chief, Gruppenführer Müller expressed it, they were sending in the master himself, so I wanted to behave like a master.”

Adolf Eichmann

Argentina Audiotapes (1957)

“Brand was then conveyed to Eichmann's office in the Hotel Majestic and ushered into his presence. Eichmann, resplendent in his SS uniform, stood in front of his desk and started barking at him: 'You… do you know who I am? I am in charge of the Aktion! In Europe, Poland, Czechoslovakia, Austria it has been completed, now it is Hungary's turn.”

Adolf Eichmann

David Cesarani, Becoming Eichmann: Rethinking the Life, Crimes, and Trial of a "Desk Murderer" (2006), p. 175. .

“When I arrived at the place of the execution, the gunmen fired into a pit the size of several rooms. They fired from small submachine guns. As I arrived, I saw a Jewish woman and a small child in her arms in the pit. I wanted to pull out the child, but then a bullet smashed the skull of the child. My driver wiped brain particles from my leather coat.”

Adolf Eichmann

CBC report (2000)

“Eichmann boasted about anything that seemed at all plausible to him: his genuinely close ties to the highest powers in Hungary; his somewhat indirect contact with the powers of the Third Reich; his access to everything from a "personal aircraft" to direct control of the gas chambers at Auschwitz. … He threatened his victims with the prospect that after the "final victory," Hitler would make him "World Commissar of the Jews."”

Adolf Eichmann

Eichmann Before Jerusalem by Bettina Stangneth (2015).

World , Victory , Personality

“I was never an anti-Semite. … My sensitive nature revolted at the sight of corpses and blood… I personally had nothing to do with this. My job was to observe and report on it.”

Adolf Eichmann

As quoted in Consensus and Controversy: Defending Pope Pius XII (2002) by Sister Margherita Marchione, p. 71.

Nature , Personality

“My heart was light and joyful in my work, because the decisions were not mine.”

Adolf Eichmann

At his trial, as quoted by Alan Rosenthal, "Eichmann, Revisited" in The Jerusalem Post (20 April 2011) http://m.jpost.com/Jerusalem-Report/Jewish-World/Eichmann-Revisited.

Decision , Light , Heart

“To sum it all up, I must say that I regret nothing.”

Adolf Eichmann

While awaiting trial in Israel, as quoted in LIFE magazine (5 December 1960).

“I was here, there and everywhere, you never knew when I was going to show up. I was a traveler…. I was able to creep into every territory of our corner of Europe.”

Adolf Eichmann

Argentina Audiotapes (1957)

Travel

“Nobody else was such a household name in Jewish political life at home and abroad in Europe as little old me.”

Adolf Eichmann

Argentina Audiotapes (1957)

Life , Home

“I was sent to Treblinka, Minsk, Lemberg and Auschwitz. When I see the images before my eyes, it all comes back to me … Corpses, corpses, corpses. Shot, gassed, decaying corpses. They seemed to pop out of the ground when a grave was opened. It was a delirium of blood. It was an inferno, a hell, and I felt I was going insane.”

Adolf Eichmann

Die Welt memoirs (1999)

Hell

“Eichmann… found all bureaucracy by definition tiresome. This was what staff were for. "These matters to do with bureaucracy," he explained to Sassen [in Argentina], "I just relied on my civil servants for them". He deployed these "living articles," like Ernst Moes and Fritz Wöhrn, as "bureaucratic brakes."”

Adolf Eichmann

Bettina Stangneth, Eichmann Before Jerusalem (2015).

“The men in my command had the kind of respect for me that prompted the Jews to effectively set me on a throne.”

Adolf Eichmann

Argentina Audiotapes (1957)

Men

“I hope that all of you will follow me.”

Adolf Eichmann

Mumbled just before being hanged, according to Rafi Eitan, an Israeli intelligence officer who was standing behind Eichmann during the execution, as quoted in Mitch Ginsburg, "Eichmann's Final Barb" in The Times of Israel http://www.timesofisrael.com/eichmanns-final-barb-i-hope-that-all-of-you-will-follow-me/, December 2, 2014.

Hope

“I will simply not do penance.”

Adolf Eichmann

A text handwritten by Eichmann in 1956, as quoted in Eichmann Before Jerusalem by Bettina Stangneth (2015).

“Every department was trying to squeeze everything possible out of the Jews, to winkle it out by threatening them with the big bad Eichmann.”

Adolf Eichmann

Argentina Audiotapes (1957)

“It was my job to catch our Jewish enemies like fish in a net and transport them to their final destination.”

Adolf Eichmann

As quoted in The Nazi Hunters by Neal Bascomb (2013). ISBN 978-0-545-56239-3.

Fish

“They knew me wherever I went. Through the press, the name Eichmann had emerged as a symbol…. In any case, the word Jew … was irreversibly linked with the word Eichmann. Much more power … was attributed to me than I actually had.”

Adolf Eichmann

Argentina Audiotapes (1957)

“If we had fifty Eichmanns, we would have won the war.”

Adolf Eichmann

Heinrich Müller, about Adolf Eichmann's devotion. Quoted in "And the Crooked Shall be Made Straight" by Jacob Robinson - Jews (1965), page 37.

War

“He is responsible because of the conspiracy and the plots for all that happened to the Jewish people — from the shores of the Arctic Ocean to the Aegean Sea, from the Pyrenees to the Urals.”

Adolf Eichmann

Gideon Hausner as quoted in The New York Times (27 June 1961).

Sea , People

“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.”

Adolf Eichmann

Hannah Arendt's "judgement" of Eichmann, in Eichmann in Jerusalem (1963).

World , Support , People

“Eichmann was personally a cowardly man, who was at great pains to protect himself from responsibility… He was amoral and completely ice cold in his attitude.”

Adolf Eichmann

Eichmann's deputy Dieter Wisliceny, as quoted by Alan Rosenthal, "Eichmann, Revisited" in The Jerusalem Post (20 April 2011) http://m.jpost.com/Jerusalem-Report/Jewish-World/Eichmann-Revisited.

Personality , Pain

“The fearsome, word-and-thought-defying banality of evil.”

Adolf Eichmann

Hannah Arendt in Eichmann in Jerusalem (1963), ch. 15.

Evil