His assignment was to murder all the Jews in Europe. He joined the Nazi party as a young man and quickly rose through the ranks. When Hitler came to power, he was put into the department for "Jewish affairs." In Austria, Eichmann brought together all the bureaucratic agencies needed for Jewish expulsion. He did the same in Czechoslovakia.
Back in Berlin, he led the entire Reich's effort for the "Final Solution" after the Wannsee Conference gave the go-ahead. Eichmann's efficient organization rounded up and transported millions of Jews to their deaths at infamous camps such as Auschwitz, Chelmno, Treblinka, Sobibor and Belzec.
After the war, Eichmann escaped capture and lived in Germany for five years before moving to Argentina where he would live under an alias for another ten years. Israeli agents finally captured him in 1960.
May 23, Ben Gurion, the Prime Minister announced to a startled Knesset that Adolf Eichmann, the SS officer who master-minded Hitler's extermination of six million Jews,was in Israeli hands and was to be put on trial for his life. He described Eichmann as "one of the greatest of the Nazi war criminals".Reports in Israel spoke of a daring operation carried out by the Israeli intelligence service, Mossad, to seize Eichmann from Argentina where he had been living under an assumed identity.
Adolf Eichmann was tried for crimes against humanity. In the jailhouse writings, Eichmann, a former traveling salesman, tried to put distance between himself and the Nazi genocide, claiming he was just a bureaucrat. His only defense was that he was "on the lowest rung," that his "position was too insignificant," and he declared repeatedly, "I had to obey." And Eichmann showed no reaction to the horrors that were described in court.
On May 31, 1962, the State of Israel carried out the only death sentence in its history on the man whose defense was, "I was just following orders."
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