'Sensational' new claims over Nazi Eichmann

[Judi Lynn]

Source: Agence France-Presse

'Sensational' new claims over Nazi Eichmann
5 hours 17 mins ago

German intelligence knew Nazi war criminal Adolf Eichmann was hiding out in Argentina eight years before Israeli agents kidnapped him in 1960, the Bild daily cited newly released documents as saying. Skip related content

"SS colonel Eichmann ... is living in Argentina under the false name of Clemens. The editor of the 'Der Weg' German newspaper in Argentina knows E.'s address," according to a 1952 document, Bild reported on Saturday.

It took another six years for Germany to inform the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) in the United States, according to CIA documents made public in 2006, the German newspaper said.

In 1960, Mossad agents kidnapped Eichmann, one of the main executors of Adolf Hitler's "final solution", in Buenos Aires. He was brought to Israel for trial, where he was convicted and hanged in 1962.





Read more: http://uk.news.yahoo.com/18/20110109/twl-sensational-new-claims-over-nazi-eic-3cd7efd.html

[Judi Lynn]

1. C.I.A. Knew Where Eichmann Was Hiding, Documents Show

C.I.A. Knew Where Eichmann Was Hiding, Documents Show
By SCOTT SHANE
Published: June 7, 2006

WASHINGTON, June 6 — The Central Intelligence Agency took no action after learning the pseudonym and whereabouts of the fugitive Holocaust administrator Adolf Eichmann in 1958, according to C.I.A. documents released Tuesday that shed new light on the spy agency's use of former Nazis as informants after World War II.

The C.I.A. was told by West German intelligence that Eichmann was living in Argentina under the name Clemens — a slight variation on his actual alias, Ricardo Klement — but did not share the information with Israel, which had been hunting for him for years, according to Timothy Naftali, a historian who examined the documents. Two years later, Israeli agents abducted Eichmann in Argentina and flew him to Israel, where he was tried and executed in 1962.

The Eichmann papers are among 27,000 newly declassified pages released by the C.I.A. to the National Archives under Congressional pressure to make public files about former officials of Hitler's regime later used as American agents. The material reinforces the view that most former Nazis gave American intelligence little of value and in some cases proved to be damaging double agents for the Soviet K.G.B., according to historians and members of the government panel that has worked to open the long-secret files.

Elizabeth Holtzman, a former congresswoman from New York and member of the panel, the Nazi War Crimes and Japanese Imperial Government Records Interagency Working Group, said the documents showed that the C.I.A "failed to lift a finger" to hunt Eichmann and "force us to confront not only the moral harm but the practical harm" of relying on intelligence from ex-Nazis.

More:
http://www.nytimes.com/2006/06/07/world/americas/07nazi.html

[Octafish]

10. ''CIA failed to 'lift a finger.' ''

Why would that be?

Know your BFEE: Spawn of Wall Street and the Third Reich

[Judi Lynn]

2. Eichmann's refuge 'known in 1952' Juergen Baetz, Berlin

Eichmann's refuge 'known in 1952' Juergen Baetz, Berlin
January 10, 2011

.GERMANY'S BND intelligence agency knew that the Nazi leader Adolf Eichmann was hiding in Argentina nearly a decade before Israeli agents captured him in 1960, according to a report in the Bild newspaper.

The US in 2006 released files showing the CIA told the BND in 1958 that Eichmann ''is reported to have lived in Argentina'' since 1952. Bild said it obtained a BND file from 1952 that indicates the agency believed he was in Argentina.

The BND has 4500 pages of classified files on Eichmann. The agency says the files need to remain secret, but a freelance reporter last year sued to have them released. They are now being reviewed in secret by three judges at the Federal Administrative Court in Leipzig.

Israeli agents abducted Eichmann in Buenos Aires in 1960 and brought him to Jerusalem for trial. Eichmann, who helped organise the extermination of Europe's Jews as the head of the Gestapo's Jewish affairs office during World War II, was found guilty of war crimes, sentenced to death and hanged in 1962.

More:
http://www.theage.com.au/world/eichmanns-refuge-known-in-1952-20110109-19ju0.html

[old mark]

3. K&R-Many of the leaders of post war Germany were "former" Nazis

appointed by the western allies to govern. There were also several secret organizations such as der Spinne (Spider) to aid Nazi war criminals to escape Europe or to hide successfully from those seeking to arrest and prosecute them. These organizations were partly funded by the industrialists who had supported Hitler as he came to power.
Many of them are still powerful in Germany today.
The Catholic church also aided many escaping Nazis, giving them passports and new identities to enable them to get to South America...or even to the USA.


mark

[FLPanhandle]

4. Not particularly surprising.

That the CIA or KGB or German Intelligence agencies knew this. However, none of them are in the law enforcement field. The CIA doesn't even have the authority to make arrests. To go after Eichmann would require turning their information over to the FBI or State Department. Intelligence agencies are always reluctant to share information.

[JackRiddler]

5. Don't make excuses for them. CIA and BND (Gehlen Org) are both Nazi successor orgs.

What became the CIA started out with the ratlines to rescue hundreds of Nazis. They protected Nazis and often themselves acted exactly as Nazis would have in the post-war period, committing mass crimes around the world. They placed Barbie in Bolivia and had him teach torture methods. He later organized a coup there. It's unclear why they protected Eichmann but there is nothing atypical about it and "reluctance" of "intelligence" agencies to share information is no excuse for this, among their thousands of other crimes.

[FLPanhandle]

7. Who's making excuses?

It's just a fact that intelligence agencies don't share their information. They have their own goals and, like you said, sometimes they'll even actively help hide people from various law enforcement agencies. No excuses. Jeez.

[reorg]

9. it would appear you are pretty ignorant

about what intelligence agencies are supposed to do.

>>The CIA doesn't even have the authority to make arrests<<

Did you sleep through the last decade? The CIA captured and abducted quite a few people in recent years, and not just to put them on trial, they saw to it that the abductees were tortured and kept in secret prisons.

During the time in question, up until the mid seventies "the system of executive command control was so ambiguous that it is difficult to be certain at what levels assassination activity was known and authorized" (not to mention "arrests"). http://www.aarclibrary.org/publib/church/reports/ir/html/ChurchIR_0010b.htm

Since neither the CIA nor the BND were going to provide their local law enforcement agencies with the information they held on Eichmann, they could have quietly turned it over to the Isrealis who were trying to get him. But they didn't. The glaring question here is: why the hell not? Even after 50 years, the BND is fighting the request to open these files.

A German historian labelled the discovery a "sensation" because we now have proof that German intelligence knew - 6 years earlier than had been assumed - where and under what name Eichmann was hiding. The BND didn't disclose this information because they didn't want it publicly known that they helped Eichmann to escape and would probably have continued to do so had it not been for admirable and circumspect individuals like Fritz Bauer, the German attorney general who tipped of the Israelis. (He is also known for bringing about the Auschwitz trials in the sixties.) He had gotten the information from a former fellow concentration-camp inmate and carefully avoided to share it with any German official because he knew who he was up against.

Some Americans may not find this worth mentioning, but who cares, they probably know nothing about post-war Germany anyway.

[LostHighway]

11. Actually, if you read "The House on Garibaldi Street"

Written by one of the people who abducted Eichmann, you'll see that it was the BND itself that gave them the information.

[reorg]

13. Actually, that doesn't appear to be true

It would certainly make headlines if such information were made available, and some history books might have to be changed, but here is what I read in "The House on Garibaldi Street":

Dramatis Personae

1. The Start of Operation Eichmann

(...)

Dr. FRITZ BAUER - Public Prosecutor of the Province of Hesse in West Germany, who, by means of Dr. Shinar, passed on the information about Eichmann's presence in Argentina to the Israeli authorities."

and on page 4:

'Eichmann has been traced,' began Bauer without any preliminaries.
'Adolf Eichmann?' exclaimed Shinar excitedly.
'Yes, Adolf Eichmann. He is in Argentina.'
'And what do you intend to do?'
'I'll be perfectly frank with you,' said Bauer. 'I don't know if we can altogether rely on the German judiciary here, let alone on the German embassy staff in Buenos Aires. That is why I was so interested in talking to you. I see no other way but to turn to you. You are known to be efficient people, and nobody could be more interested than you in the capture of Eichmann. Obviously, I wish to maintain contact with you in connection with this matter, but only provided strict secrecy is kept.'

http://www.amazon.com/House-Garibaldi-Street-Classics-Espionage/dp/0714647543#reader_0714647543

In the introduction to the 1997 edition, Shlomo Shapiro writes

"Previous editions described the source of the information as Dr. Fritz Bauer, a Jewish lawyer who held the position of state district attorney in the German state of Hessen. It was assumed that Bauer provided the information on his own personal initiative.

Harel reveals for the first time that the prime minister of Hessen at the time, Georg-August Zinn, a leading figure in Germany's Social-Democratic Party (SPD), had approved of the transfer of the information and was kept informed of Bauer's contacts with the Mossad."

Which is not all that surprising since Zinn got Bauer the job as attorney general in the first place and, while not really a leading figure on the national level - the SPD was maligned up until the seventies by those conservatives who had previously been Nazis as the party of the "Vaterlandsverräter" (traitors to the homeland) and was indeed led by former emigrants - Zinn had a reputation of a good old-fashioned Social Democrat and anti-fascist. Interesting indeed that he would agree to tipping off the Israelis instead of seeking extradition! He had nothing to do with the conservative Federal Government and the BND, both infiltrated by former Nazis as was commonly known.

[FLPanhandle]

12. Intelligence agencies don't turn information over easily

My point is that it's hardly shocking or a sensation they kept this information to themselves. It's just the way they are. Gathering information they are good at; sharing it they are bad at even when they should.

[reorg]

14. you still don't get it

The sensation is not that they kept it secret, that was already known. A historian called it "sensational" that we now have PROOF that they did it FOR 8 YEARS, and that they knew where Eichmann was very soon after he had absconded to Argentina. Which leaves only one conclusion, that they were in on it, they helped him escape. Which was certainly not their job, and cannot be excused by vague generalities like you are trying to do here.

[alcibiades_mystery]

6. Germany was not aggressive in identifying and prosecuyiting war criminals until the 1970's

The Holocaust itself had a different cultural meaning in Germany and even in the US before 1970.

[saras]

8. Not sensational, not new

Just becoming more visible in the mainstream press.