The Trial of Adolf Eichmann

Although Adolf Eichmann stood alone in the dock at Jerusalem, the crimes with which he was charged called for a complete reappraisal of the Nazi policy for exterminating European Jewry. The Prosecution presented a full account of the 'Final Solution of the Jewish Problem' which they charged Eichmann with implementing at the cost of the grossest crimes against humanity. The man-hunt for Eichmann lasted fifteen years, ending in 1960 when Israeli agents discovered him working for a water-supply company in the Argentine. Since the Argentine Government would not agree to his extradition, Eichmann was abducted and taken under arrest to Israel. The Defence argued that the method of Eichmann's capture invalidated the judicial proceedings and further that the Court was incompetent to try a man for crimes committed against the Jewish people and contrary to the Jewish law, before the State of Israel had been created. Eichmann's trial is a two-fold drama: the detailed relation of the most catastrophic events in this century, which resulted in the murder of six million Jews, and the tragedy of a man who thought obedience to an order exonerated him from the responsibility for unbelievable crimes. Lord Russell of Liverpool, who attended the trial, has drawn upon his experience as Deputy Judge Advocate General, British Army of the Rhine in Germany after the war, where he was responsible for the trial of German war criminals in the British Zone of Occupation, to write this authoritative reassessment of the Nazi tyranny over Jews and its notorious protagonist.