Adolf Eichmann: The Mind of a War Criminal

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• 1. Early influences
• 2. Drawn to the Nazis
• 3. The Jewish question
• 4. Business practice
• 5. The Final Solution
• 6. Tape recordings
• 7. Find out more
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Early influences

Adolf Eichmann was born in 1906 in Solingen, a small industrial city in the Rhineland. His father was an accountant with a local power company, but was assigned to a superior posting in Linz, Austria, in 1913. Eichmann and his five siblings followed. In 1916 his mother died and his father quickly remarried. Eichmann senior was an active member of the Evangelical Church and his son remained in the faith until 1937, long after most SS men broke with religion.

'Eichmann was adept at learning practical skills on the job, under the tutelage of seniors he respected.'

Eichmann was very much under his father's influence, and older male authority figures would continue to mould his life. Nevertheless, he did not work hard or do well at school and left without any qualifications. His father, who had meanwhile started an oil-extraction business, gave him a job. Eichmann worked on the surface and in underground oil-shale tunnels before moving to an apprenticeship with an electrical engineering firm. In 1927 his father used family contacts to get him a job with another oil company.

Little attention has been paid to Eichmann's work experience, but it had a significant bearing on his career in the SS. Eichmann was adept at learning practical skills on the job, under the tutelage of seniors he respected. While he continued to live at home, he ranged over Upper Austria selling oil products, locating sites for petrol stations, and setting them up. He also arranged kerosene deliveries. On Saturday he conscientiously completed his paperwork and reported to his superiors.

Eichmann did well and was transferred to the Salzburg district. But by 1933 he had tired of the job and, anyway, was laid off. He had learned a lot, though: how to identify prime sites at communication junctions, how to timetable and organise deliveries, how to sell a product and persuade people to do your bidding. After he was made redundant he went north to Germany, partly in search of work but mainly in fulfilment of a new passion: politics.

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