Adolf Eichmann citations

Adolf Eichmann, né à Solingen le 19 mars 1906 et exécuté dans la prison de Ramla, près de Tel Aviv-Jaffa, le 31 mai 1962, est un criminel de guerre nazi, haut fonctionnaire du Troisième Reich, officier SS Obersturmbannführer et membre du parti nazi.

Nommé pendant la guerre à la tête du RSHA Referat IV B4, qui s'occupe des « affaires juives et de l'évacuation », il est responsable de la logistique de la « solution finale » . Il organise notamment l'identification des victimes de l'extermination raciale principalement dirigée contre les Juifs prônée par le NSDAP et leur déportation vers les camps de concentration et d'extermination.

Ayant réussi à échapper à la justice après la capitulation allemande, et notamment au procès de Nuremberg, il est retrouvé, puis capturé par des agents du Mossad en mai 1960 à Buenos Aires, en Argentine, où il vivait depuis dix ans sous le nom de Ricardo Klement. Dans des conditions rocambolesques, il est exfiltré en Israël, où il est condamné à mort et exécuté à l'issue d'un retentissant procès tenu à partir d'avril 1961 à Jérusalem. Wikipedia  

✵ 19. mars 1906 – 31. mai 1962
Adolf Eichmann photo
Adolf Eichmann: 62   citations 0   J'aime

Adolf Eichmann: Citations en anglais

“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."”

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.

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

Argentina Audiotapes (1957)
Contexte: 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.

“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.”

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

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

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).

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

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.

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

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.”

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

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