The Only Sense

What prompted Adolf Eichmann's wartime offer of 1,000,000 Jews in exchange for 10,000 trucks? Was it pity for Jews? "I want a clear answer," said Judge Moshe Landau.

Into the deep, expectant silence of the courtroom. Eichmann could have dropped a single grace note of compassion. Eichmann declined the opportunity. No, it was not pity, he shrugged; it was just a matter of bureaucratic efficiency.

Bureaucrat Eichmann had performed meticulously; anything outside routine offended him. Prosecutor Gideon Hausner quoted the defendant's wartime notes complaining of a Berlin Chancellery official who wanted special help in disposing of some people he found particularly irksome: "This is the most important shop in the entire Reich, and here this uncle asks me whether he could have a few trains. And he is very courteous and cordial, because he wants to stoke the stove with a few idiots."

"I do not remember whether I said this word for word," pleaded Eichmann, "but so far as the content is concerned, I must agree that this is correct."

Roasted Steak. Could the defendant deny his dictated postwar interview with Willem A. Sassen in which he boasted of his wartime eminence?

"Poetic license." replied Eichmann. "The main thing was to make the book ... a bestseller." When he nonetheless attempted to correct a handwritten marginal note, Hausner asked why.

"I do not know," snapped Eichmann, reddening. "From now on I shall not answer any further questions in connection with this document."

"You will continue to answer questions until I tell you to discontinue," Judge Landau corrected him.

"Yes, Your Honor," said Eichmann, submissive again. "But I must point out I have a feeling I am being roasted until the rump steak is well done."

The long-suffering witness won permission, at one point, to step from his glass cage and point out on the map locations of German-occupied territories. Every policeman in court rose. Three crowded behind him. Eichmann moved the pointer uncertainly, trying to locate Bialystok. With the air of a teacher dismissing a nervous student, Hausner took the pointer away and found the place.

Greater Crime. Had not this uncertain student confidently called a former Nazi a "scoundrel" for criticizing Hitler? "This man swore allegiance to the flag," rejoined Eichmann. "I regard violation of loyalty as the greatest crime a man can perpetrate."

"A greater crime than the murder of six million people?" demanded Hausner. "No," replied Eichmann. "But I was not dealing with extermination."

Then why had he attended meetings of sterilization specialists? Said Eichmann: "So that we could leave our dry routine and meet with representatives of other offices."

Yet he admitted helping to organize the 1944 death march of 25,000 Jews from Budapest to Austria. The Hungarians were responsible for the deaths, insisted the defendant. "Hungary was the only country where we were not quick enough for them," he had told Sassen. "They turned their Jews over to us like throwing away sour beer."

"Did you say that?" asked Hausner.

"I cannot guarantee the words," admitted Eichmann, "but this is the sense, yes."

After 101 days, with his cross-examination ending, the sense was indeed clear: the only life Eichmann ever struggled to save was his own.

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