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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Drawn to the Nazis

During his trial he pretended to be apolitical, but Eichmann came from a strongly German nationalist family. Like many Germans his father lost his wealth during the post-war economic crisis and had the embittering experience of starting all over again. He enrolled his son in the Wandervogel youth movement which, while ostensibly apolitical, was strongly imbued with völkisch ideas about the Heimat (homeland). Later, Eichmann joined the Linz branch of the Heimschutz, a right wing paramilitary association of army veterans. He considered joining a Masonic club that recommended itself to him because it excluded Jews.

'Eichmann claimed that he joined the SD by error, but it suited his talents.'

Instead, in April 1932, he joined the Nazi party. At the instigation of the local gauleiter, who knew his family, he attended a Nazi rally and was approached by an SS man called Ernst Kaltenbrunner, whose father had business dealings with Eichmann senior. Kaltenbrunner must have known that Eichmann was ripe for the party because he told him: 'You belong to us'. Eichmann combined commerce with activism in the Austrian SS until 1933, when the party was outlawed and Kaltenbrunner arranged for him to go to Germany. He spent some time at an SS training centre and with an exiled Austrian SS unit before he was posted to Dachau concentration camp. From there he applied to join the SD, the Nazi Party Security Service, and was accepted for work at one of its Berlin branches.

Eichmann claimed that he joined the SD by error, but it suited his talents. He worked as a clerk in the section that monitored Freemasons before he was spotted by the head of the Jewish section of the SD, Edler von Mildenstein, who became his next 'mentor'.

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