“The time has come for me to step out of the cloak of anonymity and present myself… Name; Adolf Eichmann. Occupation; S.S. Obersturmbannfuehrer…” Thus, directly and unabashedly, the architect of the final solution, Adolf Eichmann, wrote to the German chancellor from his hiding place, a decade after the Holocaust.
The letter was uncovered in a German archive by a historian from Hamburg, Dr. Bettina Stangneth, following six years of research on the Nazi war criminal. Yesterday the letter was published for the first time in the German daily Bild.
Eichmann sent the letter to the first chancellor of the Federal Republic of Germany, Konrad Adenauer, in 1956. Eichmann was then hiding in Argentina, where he had fled with his family. What did Eichmann want from West Germany’s chancellor after the genocide in which he had taken part? To come home to Germany. The letter was sent from a suburb of Buenos Aires, where he was living under the name Ricardo Klement.
Four years later, he was captured by the Mossad and taken to Israel, where he was tried in Jerusalem and hanged in 1962.
Read more : @ haaretz.com
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