A Staged Affair

By Steve Rodan

O Germany- Hearing the speeches that ring from your house one laughs. But whoever sees you, reaches for his knife. Bertolt Brecht

This is the way Hannah Arendt began her ground-breaking book Eichmann in Jerusalem: A Report on the Banality of Evil, published 60 years ago. Arendt, born Jewish in Germany and regarded as one of the most prominent philosophers of the 20th Century, covered the trial of Adolf Eichmann in Israel in 1961 for the U.S. magazine The New Yorker. She hated the assignment until she began to attend the hearings in Jerusalem's new convention center Binyanei Haooma. A former bureaucrat in the Zionist movement, she concluded that the proceedings marked a "show trial," meant to aggrandize Prime Minister David Ben-Gurion and his Mapai regime.

To cover up the Zionist leadership's abandonment of the Jews in Europe, the state prosecutor would continually ask Holocaust survivors why they failed to resist the Germans. She wrote of the collaboration by prominent Zionists, at one point calling Germany's reform rabbi Leo Baeck, who encouraged Jews to board the trains to the death camps, the "Jewish fuhrer," the exact words the SS used to describe him.

Not surprisingly, Israel shunned Arendt's book, published about a year after Eichmann was executed, and prevented its translation into Hebrew. Major American Jewish organizations virtually excommunicated her. As Israeli historian Amos Elon put it, "No book within living memory had elicited similar passions."

Arendt's impressions of the trial proved accurate. Documents released decades later have determined that the Eichmann trial was stage-managed from beginning to end. This included an exhaustive vetting of witnesses, Ben-Gurion's guidelines to prosecutors and the selection and financing of Eichmann's attorney. The main reason was to prevent Eichmann or his witnesses to detail the Zionist cooperation with the SS even before Hitler rose to power in 1933.

Excerpt from In Jewish Blood.

Chapter: Defend and Whitewash. Page 411

On May 29, 1960, Ben-Gurion outlined his strategy for the Eichmann trial. The prime minister told the Cabinet that he would stage-manage the proceedings to ensure that the world and particularly the Jews understand that Israel did not forget the Holocaust. He would use the trial to expose the Arab link to the Nazis, starting from the mufti of Jerusalem to the German presence in Cairo. Ben-Gurion planned to hold the trial in Jerusalem’s new Binyanei Haooma, or National Building, with a seating capacity of 3,000. He urged Justice Minister Pinchas Rosen to ensure that the judges allow witnesses to go beyond the Eichmann case and testify on the entire Final Solution in accordance with the Zionist narrative of rescue.

Several Cabinet members, however, were worried. They questioned whether the Eichmann prosecution might backfire the way the Grunwald libel trial did six years earlier. Yitzhak Ben-Aharon, a senior minister who had seceded from Mapai to lead Mapam, recalled his dismay over the state’s decision to prosecute Grunwald, who accused Kastner of being a Nazi collaborator. Ben-Aharon asked Ben-Gurion and the other ministers whether they could ensure that Eichmann and his attorneys would not disclose the ex-SS officer’s contacts and cooperation with the Zionists before and during World War II. Many in the Zionist leadership had convened with Eichmann before the war. Interior Minister Moshe Shapira remembered meeting Eichmann in Vienna.

Ben-Aharon: If Eichmann tries to defend himself, he has a certain line of defense. Until 1939, also during the days of the war, he was the address for many deals that they wanted to do, also for those we saved.

Shapira: No.

Ben-Aharon: I am simply calling your attention that there is a Jewish pathology also on this point. We have already witnessed this. We have to know in the judicial process how to direct this so that it doesn’t enter rather grave internal Jewish miseries. We shouldn’t fail in this. Essentially, we failed in this before... There is a problem in the continuation of this problem. Are there guidelines in this regard?

Ben-Gurion: Yes.

Harel shared Ben-Aharon’s concerns. He warned that the Eichmann trial must not spin out of control and delve into the issue of Jewish collaborators. The Mossad chief had already taken precautions; Eichmann was not allowed to meet his attorney alone out of concern that they were planning to embarrass the Israeli leadership. Ben-Gurion, however, was confident that he could manipulate the trial. He had already ordered a government campaign to sway public opinion. The Israeli media were full of stories on Eichmann. The prime minister had directed Pearlman to write a book on the capture.

The book project was considered delicate. Ben-Gurion was concerned over a backlash abroad that would accuse Israel of violating international law. He read Pearlman’s manuscript, titled The Capture of Adolf Eichmann, to ensure that neither the Israeli government nor the security services were implicated in the Nazi’s abduction. Harel demanded a complete revision. In the second draft, neither Ben-Gurion nor the Mossad had anything to do with Eichmann. Pearlman now claimed that the Nazi had been kidnapped by Israeli “volunteers,” former members of the pre-war Shai intelligence agency. Under Ben-Gurion’s urging, Pearlman then changed the details of Eichmann’s voyage to Israel so that neither the state-owned carrier El Al nor the Foreign Ministry would be involved. Ben-Gurion wanted Pearlman’s book to be published before the trial. As Kollek, Ben-Gurion’s director-general, put it, “It’s important that the book come out before the trial to shape public opinion before the event.” The book was published by the Histadrut’s Am Oved.

Another challenge was to keep West Germany out of the Eichmann trial. Rosen consulted with his German counterpart on the legal pitfalls. The two men also discussed Bonn’s statute of limitations on Nazi war crimes. Rosen learned that the statute of limitations stipulated 20 years, including for murder, and did not cover alleged crimes before July 1943. Ben-Gurion then obtained the opening speech of prosecutor Gideon Hausner and demanded revisions, including changing the word “Germany” for “Nazi Germany.”

Still, the capture of Eichmann sparked panic in West Germany and condemnation in communist East Germany. Adenauer suspended reparations and other German aid to Israel. He also ordered a crackdown on former SS men, including aides of Eichmann. Krumey was arrested; so was Novak, now a printer in Austria. Hunsche, an attorney in West Germany, was taken into custody. Police grabbed Gustav Richter, Eichmann’s representative in Romania, and Willi Zopf, his man in Holland. Several leading Nazis, who had lived openly throughout the 1950s, were also on the arrest list. They included Richard Baer, the successor of Hoess as commandant of Auschwitz, and Wilhelm Koppe, responsible for the gas chambers at Chelmno. The leading target was Karl Wolff, Himmler’s chief of staff and an organizer of the transports to Treblinka. In 1946, he was sentenced by a German court in the British zone to four years. The German arrests, however, were largely for show. After May 1960, the statute of limitations had expired for virtually all Nazi war crimes.

Adenauer’s biggest headache was his longtime and trusted aide. Hans Globke helped draft the Nuremberg Laws against Jews back in 1935. He was identified as the one who had restored numerous Nazis to prominent positions in the Federal Republic of Germany as well as withheld information from Israel on Eichmann. He was in danger of prosecution even in Germany as Bauer collected evidence on Globke’s role in the deportation of 20,000 Jews from northern Greece. Adenauer was enraged. Globke had been the chancellor’s secretary since 1949. He was even reading Adenauer’s mail. Adenauer’s main fear was that Eichmann would be asked by either the defense or prosecution on Globke’s role in the Holocaust.

Globke had done little to alleviate the chancellor’s anxiety. His alibi was the same as most senior officials of the Reich. He denied close ties with Hitler’s regime, insisting he had merely been a “fellow traveler.” Official documents, however, told a much different story. In 1938, German Interior Minister Frick honored Globke, saying “Senior government adviser Globke is unquestionably among the most capable and most efficient officials in my ministry... He played an outstanding role in elaborating the laws specified below: a) The Law for the Protection of German Blood and German Honor of 15 September, 1935; b) Law for the Protection of the Genetic Health of the German People of 18/10/1935; c) the Civil Status of Individuals law of 3/11/1937; d) the law concerning the change of surnames and first names.”

Moreover, Globke could not deny what he had written about the Jews before and after Hitler came to power. Prior to the 1933 elections, Globke warned Jews that they would not escape persecution regardless of their efforts to assimilate into Aryan society. “Efforts by Jewish persons to mask their Jewish origins by changing their Jewish names cannot therefore be supported,” he wrote. In 1936, he wrote a commentary on the Nuremberg Laws, which disenfranchised Jews and others and established the legal basis for the Final Solution. In the book Commentary on the German Race Legislation, he examined the Jew who converted to Christianity, or married a non-Jew. He spoke of the “three-eighths Jew,” with one full Jewish and one half-Jewish grandparent; the “five-eighths Jew,” with two full Jewish grandparents and one-half Jewish grandparent. Both were deemed half-breeds.

“The Jews must resign themselves to the fact that their influence on the organization of German life is gone forever."

Ben-Gurion was not dismayed by Globke or the other Nazis in the Adenauer administration. The Israeli prime minister also did not express strong objection to rising anti-Semitism in Germany. For Ben-Gurion, it was the money from Bonn that mattered. He regarded Globke as a reformed Nazi and a German friend of Israel. “One can forgive Globke and even cover for him because the man behaved okay [toward Israel],” the prime minister wrote.

Israel protected Globke’s interests. Like other ex-Nazi civil servants, he was having a hard time entering Switzerland to access his money and conduct official duties. Amid the Eichmann trial, an Israeli detective submitted an assessment of Globke and the Nuremberg Laws in 1935. The connection between the two men was not made clear, but the Israeli was thankful for what Globke had done for the Jews under Hitler. “At the time, this booklet [of Globke] was a salvation from heaven, and I repeat that my conscience forces me to mention the positive about this commentary.

In the end, Israel received meager help in preparing the Eichmann case. With the exception of West Germany, which denied that he was a German citizen, almost nobody wanted to release documents on Eichmann. Israeli investigators contacted Czechoslovakia, Hungary, Poland, Romania and the Soviet Union for evidence. They all refused.

Ben-Gurion probably breathed a sigh of relief: the East Bloc was seen as possessing documents that could have damaged Adenauer. The assessment by Western diplomats was that Israel would not bite the hand that fed it. The key factor would be Eichmann’s cooperation. Prosecutors had received a signal early in the trial that the ex-SS officer would not testify against Globke. Adenauer was not relieved even after a message by Rolf Vogel, a German intelligence agent in contact with Israeli prosecutors. But Bauer knew that Ben-Gurion would manage to keep control of Eichmann, even under threat of execution.

In the end, the chancellor was pleased. Some two months after Eichmann’s execution, Adenauer approved 240 million Deutschmarks in military aid to Israel, the first in nearly two years.

“It was outstanding. I will never forget it.”

Below: An artist's rendition of Eichmann at his trial.