Adolf Eichmann: Doing

“I'd like to say something about this last, about this last point of this terrible, terrible business. I mean Treblinka. I was given orders. I went to see Globocnik in Treblinka. That was the second time. The installations were now in operation, and I had to report to Müller. I expected to see a wooden house on the right side of the road and a few more wooden houses on the left; that's what I remembered. Instead, again with the same Sturmbannführer Höfle, I came to a railroad station with a sign saying Treblinka, looking exactly like a German railroad station — anywhere in Germany — a replica, with signboards, etc. There I hung back as far as I could. I didn't push closer to see it all. I saw a footbridge enclosed in barbed wire and over that footbridge a file of naked Jews was being driven into a house, a big… no, not a house, a big, one-room structure, to be gassed. As I was told, they were gassed with …what's it called? … Potassium cyanide… or cyanic acid. In acid form it's called cyanic acid. I didn't look to see what happened. I reported to Müller and as usual he listened in silence, without a word of comment. Just his facial expression said: "There's nothing I can do about it."”

Adolf Eichmann

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 am one of those people who can't stand to see corpses…. But there is one good thing nature gave me. I can switch off and forget very quickly, without trying to…. I still have a very devout saying from my youth, and I always do it when I find something horribly unpleasant and I can't stop thinking about it. And in order to forcibly distract myself, do you know what I say? You'll laugh! "I believe in God the Father, and the Holy Spirit, born of the Virgin Mary, died under Pontius Pilate, suffered" and so on and so on, "was raised from the dead," and so on. I somehow realized early on, as a child - still a devout believer at that time, of course - that once I'd said that, I didn't think about anything else.”

Adolf Eichmann

Argentina Audiotapes (1957)

God , People , Youth , Nature

“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)

“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

“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

“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. .

“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

“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).

“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).