Eichmann Before Jerusalem (Bettina Stangneth)

In 1957, a circle of Nazis in Argentina taped dozens of hours of conversations with Adolf Eichmann with the expectation that these would lead to a book that refuted the estalished history of the Holocaust. To their horror, however, Eichmann proceeded to make antisemitic statements on tape that clearly indicated he had desired to exterminate all Jews, and that Nazi policy had been geared towards that ultimate objective. Eichmann killed denial stone dead. Bettina Stangneth has provided the most detailed and correctly contextualized analysis of this revisionist act of suicide that is currently available.

Eichmann stated on tape 17 that "there are still a whole lot of Jews enjoying life today who ought to have been gassed" (Stangneth, p.265). Most tellingly, on tape 67he stated that "if 10.3 million of these enemies had been killed, then we would have fulfilled our duty" (audio here). An earlier excerpt from that same conversation identifies this 10.3 million as coming from the Korherr Report and says that "[if] we had killed 10.3 million, I would be satisfied, and would say, good, we have destroyed an enemy" (Stangneth, p.304).

In his analysis of the war, Eichmann blames Weizmann, whom he calls the "Fuehrer" of world Jewry (see p.11 of trial submission T/1393). He states that "As things are now, since perfidious fate has left a large proportion of these Jews alive, I tell myself that fate so ordained. I must bow to fate and to providence" (trial transcript). Eichmann also discusses the use of exhaust gas in the Warthegau, as can be seen on page 14 of his handwritten corrections, T/1432.

It is therefore little wonder that MGK and others avoid these tapes and transcripts like the plague. The phrase "they're forged or we're doomed" seems apt.