Hunting Eichmann: How a Band of Survivors and a Young Spy Agency Chased Down the World’s Most Notorious Nazi
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- ISBN13: 9780547248028
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Product Description
Meanwhile, concentration camp survivor Simon Wiesenthal’s persistent search for the monster gradually evolves into an international manhunt that involves the Mossad, whose operatives have their own scores to settle. Open in a pulse-pounding, hour-by-hour account, the capture of Eichmann and efforts by Israeli agents to smuggle him out of Argentina to stand examination bring the narrative to a stunning conclusion. Based on groundbreaking new information and interviews, recently declassified documents, and meticulous research, Hunting Eichmann is an authoritative, keenly nuanced history that offers the intrigue of a detective tale and the thrill of fantastic spy fiction.
Product Description
The first perfect narrative of the pursuit and capture of Adolf Eichmann, based on groundbreaking new information and interviews and featuring rare, never-published Mossad scrutiny photographs. When the Allies stormed Berlin in the last days of the Third Reich, the operational manager of the mass murder of Europe’s Jews shed his SS uniform and vanished.
Bringing Adolf Eichmann to justice would require a upsetting fifteen-year chase stretching from war-ravaged Europe to the shores of Argentina.
Alternating from a criminal on the run to his pursuers closing in on his trail, Hunting Eichmann follows the Nazi as he escapes two American POW camps, hides in the mountains, slips out of Europe on the ratlines, and builds an anonymous life in Buenos Aires. Meanwhile, a persistent search for Eichmann gradually evolves into an international manhunt that includes a bulldog West German prosecutor, a blind Argentinean Jew and his gorgeous daughter, and a budding, ragtag spy agency called the Mossad, whose operatives have their own scores to settle. Open in a pulse-pounding, hour-by-hour account, the capture of Eichmann and the efforts by Israeli agents to secret him out of Argentina and glide him to Israel to stand examination bring the narrative to a stunning conclusion.
Hunting Eichmann is a fully documented, keenly nuanced history that offers the intrigue of a detective tale and the thrill of fantastic spy fiction.
A Q&A with Neal Bascomb, Leader of Hunting Eichmann
A: During my research, people questioned me this countless times, and usually they prefaced it with the question of whether or not I was Jewish. When I answered the Jewish question in the negative, the overwhelming response was “Excellent, then you’ll be seen as objective.”
About why I wrote the book: that answer is connected to the first one. You do not have to be Jewish to know the incredible significance of the operation to catch Eichmann. Lacking it, our knowledge and perception of the Holocaust would be much more limited. Before the Eichmann examination, the Nazi atrocities were largely being swept under the rug, not spoken about.
Only after the capture was there an wide reexamination of the genocide; only then did it become rooted in our collective consciousness. In this respect, the operation is one of the most vital, influential spy missions in history, period. Beyond a documentary over a decade ago, it has been nearly fifty years since a journalist has taken a thorough look at what unfolded.
Q: How did you find Eichmann’s passport?
A: Certainly one of the highlights of my research, because the document is tangible proof of how Eichmann escaped Europe. In late 2006, I was looking through ancient Buenos Aires newspapers when I came across a tale about a lawsuit filed by Vera Eichmann against the Israelis. Court records are permanently one of my favorite places to research because they’re regularly overlooked, but courts permanently keep meticulous records. Through one of my researchers, I petitioned the courts to see the lawsuit files. No response. I tried again. Come back in six weeks, they said, fill out this red tape and that. Then again. You need a lawyer, they said. Then again. Finally we were agreed the records, which had never been accessed before.
In the file was a long report about the Argentinean investigation into the capture, which was fascinating. But no passport! A few weeks later, we heard that the judge who approved our seeing the records had gone through the file before agreeing to its relief and agreed the passport to the Holocaust museum in Buenos Aires. Fortunately, the judge credited my researcher with the discovery, and we were agreed full access to the passport.
Q: What was the fantastic challenge in writing the book?
A: No debate. It was writing the narrative sections on Eichmann during the war, how he escaped, and how he lived while on the run. When I set out to write this history, I thought I would focus nearly exclusively on the hunters, not the hunted. But after learning a memoir by Eichmann on his postwar years, not to mention reading two well-known autobiographies, I really felt that I could accurately described his actions and mindset.
This got me into his head, so to speak–and this was an extremely uncomfortable place to be. For a while I had a terrible case of insomnia, and when sleep did come, I had nightmares about his actions against the Jews. Although I knew I’d be affected by the theme matter, its level of intensity was surprising.
Q: How active is the search for extant Nazi war criminals today?
A: A significant effect of the Eichmann case was the drive to bring the killers to justice, not only in the early 1960s, but half a century later. Before Eichmann, governments, including persons of the United States, Germany, and even Israel, were doing very small. That was also the case with Simon Wiesenthal, who by 1960 had also largely agreed up his efforts. Today the Wiesenthal Center, led by its intrepid Nazi hunter Ephraim Zuroff, has launched a battle to catch the last extant Nazi war criminals.
Beyond the Nazis, sadly, there are recent war criminals from conflicts in Darfur, the Balkans, and elsewhere. I judge that the drive to bring these individuals to account is, at least in part, a legacy of Eichmann, whose examination showed that perpetrators of genocide must pay for their crimes, and their acts must be made known to the world so that they can be prevented in the future.
(Photo © Jillian Mcalley)
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Nazi hunting is an inherently appealing theme, and this is particularly right of the Eichmann case.
The leader does a excellent job hooking and holding the reader’s attention, but he ain’t no Frederick Forsyth. His approach and writing is very much by the numbers; acceptably workmanlike, but it never strives for or attains a privileged level. In addition, I had a couple of point objections. First, he fervently implies that the fate of Bormann is uncertain, hinting that he may have escaped. In fact, the evidence is conclusive (and this isn’t news) that Bormann died in Berlin at the very end of the war. Second, he overemphasizes the role, and misconstrues the motivation, of certain Churchmen in helping some of the Nazis escape. He implies, anti-historically, that the Church in all-purpose was pro-Nazi. Oh, please.
One more thing: What happened to the tin box that had contained Eichmann’s ashes? Was it also thrown into the sea? A tiny detail, I grant you, but I’d like to know.
In synopsis, I recommend this book, but be prepared for a certain flatness.
Reader’s Rating: 3 / 5
This book is disappointing. I bought it on the might of Bascomb’s book “The Perfect Mile”, which was well-written and compelling, shedding much informative light on the characters involved in the race to break the four-minute mile barrier, on their motivation and techniques, and on the significance and context of the target. It brought alive the people, the quest, and the times.
The Eichmann book is the opposite on nearly every count. It is a fascinating tale, but Bascomb has succeeded in building it dull. There is remarkably small on Eichmann’s background, so we are offered small explanation of the scale of his crimes or of why capturing and trying him was so vital. Lacking the necessary context, the rest of the book limps along with not much to sustain it. It focuses on the minute details (many of them unimportant) of every step in the process of setting up the capture, the personalities of the major characters are painted only thinly, and the tale is intricate by (a) the weird hopping back and into the world in the sequence of events that took Eichmann to Argentina, and (b) the unnecessary amount of attention paid to multiple marginal characters, building it hard to keep everyone straight.
Occasionally you get some flashes of insight into the people involved and into the times in which the events took place, but generally the book does a poor job of bringing the topic alive, or of conveying the significance of finding Eichmann. It would have benefitted a lot from the eye and mind of a excellent editor. I could read no more than a dozen pages at a time before apt bored, and I establish myself skipping large parts of the middle of the book in the search for the core narrative and for something I could get my teeth into.
Reader’s Rating: 3 / 5
This is a well written and researched narrative of a pivotal episode in post-war history. It has all the fundamentals of a modern day spy thriller with, sorry to say, none of the suspense. Perhaps it’s because we all know the eventual outcome, or perhaps it’s because the leader tries too hard to dress up the tedious details of the preparation phase of the kidnap. Nonetheless, if you’re at all interested in the post war life and capture of Adolf Eichmann, this book is a very excellent starting point.
Reader’s Rating: 4 / 5
This turned out to be a very excellent book about the capture of Adolf Eichmann. He was placed in charge of implementing the “Final Solution”.
This was the Nazi plot to rid the world of the Jewish population.He was
deadly effective at his job. He set up concentration camps.gas chambers
and additional means of killing humans. Due to his efforts over 6 million Jews
were place to death. He was the head of Department IVB4. This was the department in charge of the Final Solution. When the war finished he knew to flee Europe. He was in the hands of the Americans but he escaped. Through
the efforts of the Catholic Church and Bishop Alois Hudal he escaped and
made his new home in Argentina. He took the name Ricardo Pleasant and went
to work in Argentina. Efforts of Simon Wiesenthal filed to produce Adolf
Eichmann. The daughter of Lothar Herman a blind Jew met Nick Eichmann. He
bragged of his father’s wartime exploits. Herman figured out who his father really was. He contacted the West German Attorney All-purpose Fritz Bauer. Bauer passed the information on to Israel. After several luke warm
investigations the Israelis abandoned the investigation. After getting new
leads the pursuit of Eichmann was renewed. The residence of Eichmann was
finally located. After establishing a certain identity a team was sent to
Argentina to kidnap Eichmann. After much preparation a sucessful kidnapping
of Eichmann was engineered. He was brought to Israel and place on examination. He
was establish guilty and hanged. Justice was finally served. If you like history this is your book.
Reader’s Rating: 5 / 5
The leader tells the engrossing store of Adolf Eichmann and his eventual date with justice well. It is hard to recommend anything on this topic as “summer reading”, but I couldn’t place it down.
Reader’s Rating: 5 / 5