Hunting Eichmann (8 page)

"Eichmann went on to explain to me what was meant by this. He said that the planned biological annihilation of the Jewish race in the Eastern Territories was disguised by the concept and wording 'Final Solution.'"

"Was anything said by you to Eichmann in regard to the power given him under this order?"

"Eichmann told me that within the RSHA he personally was entrusted with the execution of this order," Wisliceny responded. "For this purpose, he had received every authority from the Chief of the Security Police; he himself was personally responsible for the execution of this order."

"Did you make any comment to Eichmann about his authority?"

"Yes. It was perfectly clear to me that this order spelled death to millions of people. I said to Eichmann, 'God grant that our enemies never have the opportunity of doing the same to the German people,' in reply to which Eichmann told me not to be sentimental."

With this stark testimony, the significance and character of Adolf Eichmann was revealed to the general public for the first time. However, since the summer, the Allied investigators had grown increasingly keen on his capture. The CIC had interviewed his wife in Altaussee in August. She had informed investigators that she had had no contact with her husband since they had separated in March 1945. Nor did she have a picture of him to give them.

By early September, interrogations of several other intimates of Eichmann, including Wisliceny, had provided an exhaustive chronicle of Department IVB
₄
's leader and his close associates. It was clear that he had been alive at the war's end, and his associates doubted that he would have committed suicide. The investigators had several tips as to his whereabouts, among them Altaussee and Salzburg. Later that month, the Allies targeted Eichmann in a special report as "urgently wanted at the Supreme Headquarters of the Allied Expeditionary Force center for interrogation and possibly for trial by the War Crimes Commission." By November, notices distributed to various CIC regions labeled him "of the highest importance among war criminals" and provided a vivid, precise portrait of him:

Age: Approximately 40
Height: 1.78 meters
Weight: 70 kilograms
Build: Gaunt, sinewy
Hair: Thinning on top, dark blond
Eyes: Blue-gray
Face: Prominent features, beak nose
Posture: Erect, military, mountaineer's gait
Dialect: Speaks Austrian accent, strident, hoarse, unmodulated voice, always loud

Other identifying marks: Usually carries a walking stick. Motions are strikingly nervous; while talking, he has a nervous cough, a twitch in one corner of the mouth, closes one eye.

Yet at the start of 1946, Eichmann remained undetected after more than six months in Allied hands, revealing the fractured and overstretched state of the war crimes investigators. Beyond their early targets of the Nazi elite, who were now on trial, the British dragged their feet, and the Americans still did not have enough investigators to handle the number of individuals they had targeted. Further crippling their efforts, the much-vaunted
CROWCASS
list of suspects was not widely distributed until the fall of 1945, and even then it was too voluminous to be effective.

The Allies had proved more than capable of rounding up tens of thousands of suspects in their automatic arrest categories. They had been photographed and interrogated, and their physical characteristics had been noted. But without a coordinated, fully staffed center for this information, neither Eichmann nor the others who lied about their identities could be exposed in a POW system with more than two hundred American camps in Germany alone.

Nonetheless, individual Allied investigators struggled mightily against these challenges. A few days after Wisliceny's testimony, the CIC issued another bulletin to its regional offices, requesting every lead on Eichmann, who was "at least partly responsible for the extermination of about 6,000,000 Jews," to be followed to secure his arrest. The bulletin warned that Eichmann was "a desperate type who, if cornered, will try to shoot it out. He is a resourceful alpinist and presumably frequently changing his location."

At the Ober-Dachstetten camp, Eichmann was planning his escape. In early January 1946, through the prisoner grapevine, he learned of the testimony of Dieter Wisliceny. He had named his youngest son after Wisliceny. If one of his closest friends was singing to the Allies, Eichmann could be sure that others were as well, perhaps his adjutant Jänisch, who knew of his fake identity. Now that Eichmann had been publicly identified as being the center point of the Final Solution, the price on his head was certain to be high.

For months now, the fear of capture had gnawed at him. He could never be certain who was searching for him, how diligently, whether they had his photograph, whether they had informants. He had survived another Ansbach interrogation, yet it had left him even more convinced that his interrogators did not believe him. Either they would eventually identify him as Eichmann or some Jewish survivor would recognize him. One way or the other, his discovery was certain if he remained in the camp.

Eichmann went straight to Colonel Opperbeck, the camp's top-ranking SS officer. Eight months after the collapse of the Third Reich, Eichmann still felt the need to seek approval before making a move. He revealed to Opperbeck his name and rank, his position in the RSHA, and his desire to escape.

"I have known who you are for quite a while," Opperbeck said. "Since you never said anything to me, I kept it to myself."

They agreed to hold a meeting of the SS officers. That night, they assembled by the latrine, and Eichmann told the officers that he wanted to get out of the camp. He did not reveal his name, only that he feared that the Allies were after him for his political activities. He told the group that he planned to travel to Egypt, where he might find safe harbor.

The officers consented to the escape. One, Hans Feiersleben, suggested that Eichmann stay in Germany for a while. He had a brother who was a forest ranger in northern Germany and could get him a job in an isolated area where the Allies would never find him. Another, Kurt Bauer, advised him to travel first to Prien, southeast of Munich, where Bauer's sister would hide him and assist in his travels.

By the time the meeting concluded, Eichmann had a plan. The other officers helped him forge papers in the name of Otto Heninger. An orderly made an attempt to burn off his SS tattoo. And a woman he used to flirt with at the camp's fence slipped him a Tyrolean jacket and some dye to color his Luftwaffe pants green. With a pair of wool socks pulled over his pants, he would look like any hunter out in the woods.

A few nights later, Eichmann shaved his beard and put on his new outfit. He made his way to a section of the barbed-wire fence out of the guards' view. In the darkness, he gingerly climbed through the barrier, avoiding the razor points. On the other side of the fence, he hesitated, feeling helpless, exposed to any random patrol. He hastened into the woods.

5

IT WAS LATE MAY
1946, and Tuviah Friedman was waiting on a Vienna street for a man he knew only as Arthur. Arthur was the chief of the Haganah in Vienna as well as the leader of the Brichah organization that was helping the twenty-four-year-old Friedman and thousands of other Jews secretly to immigrate to Palestine. Friedman's request to meet with Arthur had nothing to do with this journey, but it was of equal, if not greater, importance to him.

Near the end of the war, Friedman had returned to his little house in Radom, a small industrial city in the heart of Poland that the Russians had freed on their advance toward Berlin. Standing on the street outside the house, he was flooded with childhood memories: his young sister, Itka, pedaling her bicycle and keeping her blond curls from her face with one hand; his daring younger brother, Hershele, playing on the roof; his older sister, Bella, reading one of her precious books; his father showing him the workings of the printing presses; his mother in one of the pretty dresses she made at her shop. His parents, Itka, and Hershele were all dead, thanks to the Nazis, and he still did not know whether Bella was alive. He had survived the ghettos, the slave labor, the murderous whimsy of the SS guards, and a half-planned breakout from a work camp through the sewers. He had ultimately managed to escape only by burying a bayonet into the neck of a German soldier. Standing outside his house, now inhabited by a family that had moved in as soon as the Jews had been cleared from Radom, Friedman knew that this world was dead to him. He would not return again.

He joined the Polish militia and was sent to Danzig to arrest any Germans still in the ruined city. His superior advised him to take the name Jasinki—with his blond hair, he could pass as a Gentile. He reluctantly agreed, wanting the position. Soon he found he had a knack for police and interrogation work, not to mention a real zeal, fueled by his grief and anger, for making his SS prisoners cower in front of him. While in Danzig, Friedman was reunited with Bella, who had miraculously survived Auschwitz.

Over the passing months, he became more and more uncomfortable living a lie, pretending to be Jasinki. Early in 1946, he retired from the military, joined a kibbutz outside Danzig, and a couple of months later contacted the Brichah and began the trek toward Palestine. En route, he met an old friend in the streets of Vienna, who told him about an SS man from there whom they knew from Radom. Friedman marched straight to the man's house, learned that he was hiding in an American POW camp, went undercover to find him, and won his confession. Then he heard of another SS officer from Radom, also hiding in Vienna. Friedman asked to see the Haganah chief, hoping to get his help in gathering evidence against the officer.

A black sedan pulled to the curb, and its driver rolled down the passenger's side window. Cigar smoke plumed out. "Friedman?" the driver asked. He nodded and got into the car.

Arthur Pier introduced himself as he drove. He was tall and slender, and he spoke and dressed like an aristocrat. Though only a few years older than Friedman, Pier had an air of calm competence that impressed Friedman straightaway. He told Pier about his desire to get to Palestine.

"And we're anxious to get you there," Pier said. "I'm a kibbutz member myself, and we need healthy young men like you, Tadek."

Friedman was surprised that Pier knew his nickname, but he said nothing. They arrived at 2 Frankgasse in the center of Vienna. The sign on the door read
AUSTRIAN REFUGEE ORGANIZATION,
but it was actually the Brichah headquarters, a six-room office that hummed with activity. Pier invited Friedman into his office and closed the door. Friedman explained that before leaving for Palestine, he wanted assistance in getting to Stuttgart to collect testimony against two SS officers.

"What are their names?" Pier asked, paging through a small black notebook on his desk. "This little notebook is the result of two years of hard work in Palestine ... Konrad Buchmayer? Yes, he's listed ... There's a Gestapo officer named Schokl in Radom. That must be your man, Richard Schoegl." He made a quick mark with a red pencil by each name. Then Pier looked up at Friedman. "Tadek, a few weeks ago, the leader of your kibbutz told me about you, and about your work in Danzig."

Pier explained that he had emigrated from Vienna when the Nazis had taken over. After a few years helping others get to Palestine, the Jewish Agency had tasked him with collecting evidence on Nazi war criminals from refugees arriving in Haifa. Over the next eighteen months, he had collected dossiers on thousands of Germans, which he had then passed to the American OSS and the International Criminal Tribunal in Nuremberg. Pier told Friedman that at the end of the war, David Ben-Gurion, the leader of the Jewish Agency, had brought Pier and other top people in the organization together and had called on them to go to Europe to lead the movement of Jews to Palestine. This would further their efforts to create an independent state. Ben-Gurion also had instructed them to join the Allies in hunting down war criminals, using the information that Pier had collected. They must be brought to justice, Ben-Gurion had insisted, hammering his fist on the table for emphasis.

Posing as a journalist, Pier had arrived in November 1945, carrying with him a briefcase with a false bottom containing the notebook and gold sovereigns to fund his operation. He had soon found himself overwhelmed by his responsibilities smuggling refugees to Palestine. He was just now putting together a team to go after the war criminals in earnest and to bring them to trial. "This is not an easy job. None of us here works for money," Pier said. "I know you've experience in this, and I am asking you to work with us, to find these murderers."

Friedman listened. He now understood why he had survived the horrors of the war: to do this work.

"Did you ever hear of Adolf Eichmann?" Pier asked, pointing to his name in the notebook.

Friedman told him no, feeling foolish for not knowing who he was.

"You must find Eichmann. I will say it to you again: you
must
find Eichmann." Pier gestured again to his notebook. "I want to be able to put a line through it."

Friedman had his mission. He was one of several men Pier was setting on the trail of the lieutenant colonel he had first known in Vienna. Pier had heard many stories about Eichmann over the past two years, particularly about his deeds in Hungary. He wanted him captured and brought to justice.

The Haganah was not the only group after Eichmann. Other pursuers, operating independently, had some of the same information as Pier and believed that they already had their target in sight. Unlike Pier, however, they wanted immediate justice, not a trial.

Five Jewish avengers, outfitted with British army uniforms and Sten guns, hid their jeep in a grove of trees outside a small village between Linz and Salzburg. They waited for the last of the light to drain from the sky. Their eyes were trained on a small two-story chalet. When night completely enveloped them, they slowly made their way up the hillside to kill Adolf Eichmann.