Adolf Eichmann

[[Image:OldEichmann.jpg|225px|thumb|Adolf Eichmann, Germany 1940

World War II

At the start of the Second World War, Eichmann had been promoted to SS-Hauptsturmführer and had made a name for himself with his Office for Jewish Emigration. Eichmann had even been sponsored, by the SS Race and Settlement Office, to take a trip to Palestine and study aspects of the Jewish Homeland. Through this work Eichmann made several contacts in the Zionist movement which he worked with to speed up Jewish Emigration from the Reich. Ironically his ultimate executioner was the State of Israel.

Related Topics:
Second World War - Hauptsturmführer - Palestine - Zionist - State of Israel

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

Eichmann's office was expanded in late 1939 to cover the entirety of the German Reich, and Eichmann was transferred from the SD to the Gestapo in 1940. He was promoted to the rank of SS-Sturmbannführer in late 1940, and less than a year later to Obersturmbannführer. He was assigned as the commander of the Jewish Division of the Gestapo Religions Department in the Reich Central Security Office (RSHA) with the code for his position listed as "IV-B4".

Related Topics:
Gestapo - 1940 - Sturmbannführer - Obersturmbannführer - RSHA

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

In 1942, Reinhard Heydrich invited Eichmann to attend the Wannsee Conference where Germany's anti-Jewish measures were set down into an official policy of genocide. To this "Final Solution of the Jewish Question" Eichmann was tasked as "Transportation Administrator", which put him in charge of all the trains which would carry Jews to the Death Camps in Poland. For the next two years, Eichmann performed his duties with incredible zeal, often bragging that he had personally sent over five million Jews to their deaths by way of his trains.

Related Topics:
Reinhard Heydrich - Wannsee Conference - Poland

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

Eichmann's work had been noticed, and in 1944, he was sent to Hungary after Germany had occupied that country in fear of a Soviet invasion. Eichmann at once went to work deporting Jews and was able to send four hundred thousand Hungarians to their deaths in the Nazi gas chambers.

Related Topics:
Hungary - Soviet

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

By 1945, Eichmann's world was collapsing, as Reich Leader Heinrich Himmler had ordered that Jewish extermination be halted and evidence of the Final Solution be destroyed. Eichmann blatantly turned against Himmler and continued his work in Hungary against official orders. Eichmann was also working to avoid being called up in the last ditch German military effort, since a year before he had been commissioned as a Reserve Untersturmführer in the Waffen-SS and was now being ordered to active combat duty.

Related Topics:
Heinrich Himmler - Waffen-SS

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

Eichmann fled Hungary in 1945 as the Russians invaded, and he returned to Austria where he met up with his old friend Ernst Kaltenbrunner. Kaltenbrunner, however, refused to associate with Eichmann since Eichmann's duties as an extermination administrator had left him a marked man by the Allies.

Related Topics:
1945 - Ernst Kaltenbrunner

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~