| “ | I obeyed. Regardless of what I was ordered to do, I would have obeyed. I can't shed my skin, captain. That was my attitude at the time. When I received an order I obeyed, because an oath is an oath and I had taken an oath of loyalty. I refuse to take responsibility for things I had no orders for and which were not my department. | „ |
| ~ Eichmann denying his involvement in the Holocaust. |
Adolf Eichmann is the main antagonist of the 2007 historical drama Eichmann. He is based on the real-life war criminal of the same name.
He was portrayed by Thomas Kretschmann, who also played Timothy Cain in Resident Evil: Apocalypse, Alfredo Grossi in The Stendhal Syndrome, Eli Damaskinos in Blade II, Professor Zündapp in Cars 2, Flemming in Hostel III, Wolfgang von Strucker in the Marvel Cinematic Universe, Le Clerq in Hitman: Agent 470, Lorentz Vogelmann in Dragged Across Concrete and Colonel Weber in Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny.
Biography[]
A dedicated Nazi and SS-Obersturmbannführer, Eichmann was appointed head of Reich Security Head Office IV B4, the office in charge of solving the "Jewish Question" by any means necessary. Answerable directly to Reichsfuhrer-SS Heinrich Himmler, Eichmann's main job was to oversee the deportation of all Jews and other supposed "subhumans" in Nazi-occupied territory into concentration camps, which he did with ruthless efficiency. Eichmann personally signed orders for the deportation of millions of Jews from all over Europe, condemning them to die in the gas chambers with the stroke of a pen. Among the millions of names on the deportation list was Abraham Less, the father of the film's protagonist Avner Less, who was gassed in Auschwitz.
Eichmann had a reputation in RSHA IV B4 as a bully and a womanizer, keeping several mistresses throughout his career. One such mistress, Anne-Marie Schmidt, was Jewish and was protected from deportation by her relationship with Eichmann. Eichmann used his authority to requisition a farm in Austria and award it to Anne-Marie under her (non-Jewish) married name, staffing it with Jewish slave labourers from the concentration camps. During their relationship Eichmann became jealous that his chauffeur was spending too much time with Anne-Marie and framed him for theft, getting him four years in prison. He eventually ended the affair in 1942 when he was transferred to Hungary and ordered all the slave labourers shot, telling Anne-Marie to euthanize her animals now that she had no workforce to care for them.
While in Hungary, Eichmann had another affair with an aristocratic woman named Ingrid von Hjalmar, a sadist who was aroused by his role in the deaths of millions of Jews. Eichmann furnished her and himself with two gold rings containing suicide capsules in case they were captured by the Allies, fashioning the rings from gold teeth looted from murdered Jews. One day in 1943 Ingrid came to Eichmann's office to give him a "present": a young infant with a hereditary disability who she had taken from his mother. She demanded that Eichmann kill the child as a show of his devotion to the Reich. Despite some initial hesitation, Eichmann chose to go through with it and shot the baby in the head; however, after this incident he decided Ingrid was insane and ended the relationship.
Eichmann fled prosecution after the fall of the Third Reich and escaped to Argentina with his wife and children, conceiving his fourth child while on the run. While he was in hiding he was denounced by his former colleagues who gave evidence implicating him during the Nuremberg trials in an unsuccessful attempt to save themselves from execution. Eichmann remained at large until he was tracked down in 1960 and apprehended by Mossad, who took him to Israel to stand trial for war crimes.
Eichmann[]
Eichmann is interrogated by Captain Avner Less, who hopes to get Eichmann to admit to his role in the Holocaust. Eichmann claims to have had no knowledge of the Holocaust, telling Less he was only a cog in the machine and had no knowledge or control over the fate of the Jews he deported. Less confronts him with the Nuremberg testimony of his deputy Dieter Wisliceny, who said that Eichmann told him he would "leap laughing into the grave" knowing he had the deaths of five million Jews on his conscience, but Eichmann says he meant "enemies of the Reich" and that Wisliceny lied to save himself from hanging (which didn't work). Less also probes him about his relationships with Anne-Marie Schmidt and Ingrid von Hjalmar, but Eichmann manages to avoid admitting to anything, although the questions bring up unpleasant memories of Ingrid making him kill the baby. Meanwhile, the Israeli public find out where Eichmann is being held and riots break out outside the prison as demonstrators try to break in and lynch him.
Under pressure to get a confession quickly, Less questions Eichmann about his relationship with Amin al-Husseini, the Mufti of Jerusalem who publicly called for the extermination of the Jews. According to Wisliceny he invited al-Husseini to tour Auschwitz in 1941. Eichmann claims that he only met al-Husseini once in 1938, but Less finds evidence that he received gifts from al-Husseini on behalf of the Nazi Party; Eichmann says he gave them back. Less also shows Eichmann a request for human skulls to be harvested from concentration camp inmates and shipped to Strasbourg for scientific research, which was sent directly to Eichmann, but he says that he handed the request off to another department, which Less cannot disprove.
Less begins to focus on Eichmann's actions towards the end of the war. He finds a report from a Red Cross representative who met Eichmann at the Theresienstadt camp in 1945 and was told by another official that Eichmann was in charge of shipping inmates to Auschwitz, which he refused to answer questions about. Eichmann tells Less he was only obeying orders, but when pressed he says he was ordered by Hitler, which makes Less suspicious as his orders should have come only from Himmler. He suspects that Eichmann was acting on his own authority. To prove this, he puts forward witness statements from people who say he was present when Jews were shot and hanged, even intervening so that the nooses would be reused as "a Jewish life was not worth the waste of rope". Eichmann says he had nothing to do with the killing of Jews and he threw up when he saw Jews being shot, but flashbacks show him casually watching the executions while laughing and joking with the guards. He is also shown timing how long it took Jews to be killed by carbon monoxide in the back of a "gas van" before ordering the commandant of Auschwitz to switch to Zyklon B as carbon poisoning was too slow, but in the present he tells Less he was only responsible for the transports and had no control over the exterminations.
Eichmann continues to deny responsibility even in the face of statements by Rudolf Kastner, head of the Jewish Council in Budapest, that Eichmann told him the Jews in the camps would be gassed and extorted money in return for saving them, and Nuremberg testimony that he ordered gas to be used in the camps because it was more efficient than shooting. However, Less becomes increasingly suspicious of the fact that Eichmann always denies getting any orders from Himmler, only from Hitler or Reinhard Heydrich, even though he was Himmler's direct deputy, and realizes that Eichmann doesn't want him to know something about his relationship with Himmler.
After checking all written communications between Himmler and Eichmann, Less finds what Eichmann is hiding: an order from Himmler to cease all deportations to Auschwitz. Less has documents showing that deportations continued after this date despite Himmler's orders. When confronted, Eichmann insists he was not involved, until Less produces his smoking gun: marching orders signed by Eichmann for a death march from Budapest to Auschwitz, dated after Himmler's order. Eichmann realizes he is beaten and, knowing he will surely be hanged, asks Less to deliver a letter to his family, telling him his children are too young to lose their father; when Less angrily points out that he ordered the deaths of much younger children, Eichmann replies, "They were Jews".
Later, Eichmann is convicted of crimes against humanity after a lengthy trial. He is sentenced to death and hanged just after midnight on 1 June 1962.
Trivia[]
- Eichmann's full name as given in the film, "Karl Adolf Eichmann", is incorrect. In reality his given name was "Otto Adolf".
- The scenes concerning Eichmann's fictional relationships with Anne-Marie Schmidt and Ingrid von Hjalmar were criticised by many reviewers, who felt that they were ahistorical and overly sensationalist.
- Particularly controversial was the scene in which Ingrid pushes Eichmann into executing a disabled infant, which many felt was inserted solely for shock value. Although an anonymous Holocaust survivor did allegedly claim to have witnessed Eichmann shooting an infant, this was never proved and almost all the details were different to the film, leading to accusations that the filmmakers just wanted to show a baby being killed for the sake of being shocking without giving proper consideration to the scene.
- The film's portrayal of Eichmann's relationship with Amin al-Husseini is inaccurate, as in real life there is no credible evidence that al-Husseini ever visited Auschwitz or that Eichmann had any direct contact with him after 1938.