Eichmanns Memoiren: ein kritischer Essay

Analyzes Eichmann's differing accounts of his role in the Holocaust: in his interviews with the former Dutch SS-man Sassen in Argentina shortly before his kidnapping, in his interrogation by the Israeli police and in court, and in the two memoirs written in prison. Especially in the interviews with Sassen, he boasts of his own "creative" proposals for the resettlement of the Jews, and complains about the rivalry within the bureaucracy, which blocked his plans. In his pronouncements in Israel, he tried to represent his organization of migration and resettlement as efforts to help the Jews. Toward the end of 1941, when resettlement proved impracticable, and there was pressure to make room in German-annexed territories for ethnic Germans from the USSR and a demand by governors of the occupied regions to rid them of Jews, Eichmann's duties changed: he was put in charge of organizing the transport of Jews to extermination sites and had to inspect these sites personally. Discusses individual responsibility in the light of Eichmann's assertion that he was only obeying orders, commenting that he had completely assimilated Nazi antisemitic ideology.