"Operation Finale": how the Jews had kidnapped Adolf Eichmann, the most wanted Nazi
In the last days of the war, many Nazi criminals looking for ways to escape, rightly fearing for their lives. Many of them were captured and sent for trial at Nuremberg, but some people managed to escape. Among these fugitives most wanted was Adolf Eichmann — the mastermind and chief organizer of the Holocaust.
Until 1960, the offender was able to fool hunters Nazis, but "Mossad" is still found. The result of "operation Finale", brilliantly executed by the Israeli intelligence, was the kidnapping of Eichmann, his service in Israel, judgment, and death on the gallows. We'll tell you how it happened.
Adolf Eichmann since 1939, he headed a special unit of the Gestapo, responsible for the creation of ghettos and concentration camps, as well as for the direct destruction of the Jewish population of Europe. It Eichmann wrote the Protocol of the Wannsee conference, which set out a plan of mass destruction, later known as the Holocaust.
It is not surprising that Eichmann was a most wanted Nazi, even more hateful, than the "Doctor of Death" Josef Mengele. "Architect of the Holocaust" looking around the world, from Kuwait to Chile, and he settled in the Sunny Argentina, among the same, as himself, former Nazis and lived the life of a nondescript Everyman.
Located as far away from Europe, Argentina became a haven of salvation for thousands of Nazi war criminals. President Juan perón had always sympathized with Hitler, and after the defeat of Germany had given the "green light" to enter Argentina for fugitive Nazis. The Nazis along with their families, if fake passports, reached the edge of the world and organized in the South American country a large and influential Diaspora.
While Peron was in power, the Germans worked in many positions and even served in the army of Argentina. Adolf Eichmann did not need — he stole ruined it for people with enough money to support yourself and your family. Organizer of the Holocaust, so as not to attract attention, got a job at the local branch of the company "Mercedes" and lived in one of the poor districts of Buenos Aires under the name Ricardo Clement, with his wife and three sons.
It is one of the sons of the fugitive, Nicholas, and helped the Israelis to find his elusive father. The young man fell in love with the daughter of another German expatriate Lothar Hermann and she decided to acquaint the youth with his father. Lothar, although he was a native of Germany, had nothing to do with the Nazis — he was a Jew and his family was seriously injured during the war.
The young man introduced himself as openly Klaus Eichmann and boasted that his father was involved in the "mass cleansing", was interested Lothar Hermann. Old German Jew was almost blind, but after two or three meetings have no doubt that his daughter's boyfriend is the son of Adolph Eichmann.
Lothar wrote a letter to Germany, the attorney General of the state of Hesse Fritz Bauer, and he gave information on the whereabouts of Eichmann by the Israeli authorities. It took the "Mossad" and a picture of the life of Nazi war criminal became visible at a glance.
Eichmann, fleeing from Germany, have left Europe's wife and children. Then, back under the guise of the Argentine German-born Ricardo Clement, again, married his wife and moved the family to Buenos Aires. Despite the amount exported to Argentina in the escape, the family of fugitives lived very modestly. They belonged to a little old house in a poor neighborhood, and the Eichmann don't even have a car and he went to work by bus.
The operation to kidnap the perpetrator, dubbed "the Finale" was headed personally by the Director of Mossad Isser Harel. Her training began in the fall of 1959 and was completed in April 1960. There were 30 people, 12 of which came in the capture group, and the remaining were employed in the surveillance, communications and security. 29 April 1960 Harel personally arrived in Buenos Aires to run critical operations.
For "Finale" in the capital of Argentina was rented several houses and apartments and two cars. Was provided for all the options, up to the unpleasant — if operations will prevent the Argentine police. Eichmann was impossible to kill in no case is too valuable information about the crimes of the Nazis he had. In case of exposure of the group to one of the participants of the operation was supposed to cuff himself to the kidnapped and the key thrown away.
About the participation of "Mossad" to mention it was impossible, so it could cause an international incident and the perpetrators had to impersonate independent of the Avengers. In case of failure, we had to make about Eichmann learned as many people as possible — it would prevent the Nazis to slip away.
11 may 1960 seven people in two cars were expecting Eichmann after work at his home. 20.00 object got off the bus and dusk began to move down the street towards his house, illuminating the path of a pocket torch. One of the Mossad, Peter Malkin, called to the man — "Un momentito, señor!" ("Wait a minute, sir"), and when he stopped, grabbed him by the neck wrestling Nelson and knocked to the ground.
Immediately to the Eichmann ran the other agents and, grasping his hands and feet were loaded into the car and covered with a dense blanket. Later one of the participants in the "Finale", Rafi Eitan, recalled that the Nazi had the slightest resistance, and, while he was driving in the car on a rented Villa, only quietly howled.
Villa Eichmann contained 9 days chained to the bed and there the chief of the Mossad Harel conducted the first interrogation of the detainee. Stolen did not deny it and almost immediately called his real name and the identity of the SS and the party ticket of the NSDAP. Error could not be and Harel decided to start the second part of the transaction — the delivery of the criminal in Israel.
First and foremost Nazi forced to write a letter in which he expressed his desire to go to Israel and to stand there before the court for their crimes:
Take the Eichmann out of the country, where almost openly sympathized with the Nazis, was more difficult than to detain. May 19, at the airport in Buenos Aires landed a passenger plane of Israeli airline "El al" with the official delegation. On the same day on one of the streets of the Argentine capital was staged traffic accident involving an Israeli pilot.
Eichmann was brought to the airport in the form of a pilot of the "El al", is pumped to a semi-conscious state of the drug and with a bandaged head. From the accompanying agents "Mossad" was in the hands of reference for the guards, which stated that the victim — the pilot of civil aviation Rafael Arnon, which wounded, but transportable. After seeing the passport in the name of Arnon, the Argentines missed the bandaged man and accompanying people to the aircraft. The flight took place immediately.
Later it turned out that while Eichmann stayed at the Villa with agents, Buenos Aires combed together with the police 300 Nazis. They were furious and at the same time in panic, as if someone reached out to Eichmann, then none of them can feel safe.
Soon the government of Israel announced to the world that Eichmann appeared in court and apologized to the government of Argentina for arbitrariness in the territory of a foreign country. The trial of the most wanted Nazi began in April and ended in December 1961. At the trial, made hundreds of living witnesses of the Holocaust and the verdict was quite fair — the death penalty.
Adolf Eichmann was hanged in the prison of the city of Ramle in the night from 31 may to 1 June 1962, and his body then burned. Burial places of the murderer of millions of Jews in the land of Israel was not, therefore, executed the ashes scattered over the Mediterranean sea in international waters.
Keywords: History | Argentina | Plane | Abduction | Buenos Aires | Nazis | Intelligence