The Final Solution
When Germany invaded Russia in June 1941 an expectation swept through the agencies responsible for Jewish affairs. It was anticipated that soon Jews could be transported to the east and dumped there. Meanwhile, mobile killing units, Einsatzgruppen, swept across Russia slaughtering Jews who were deemed Bolshevik enemies. Eichmann had little to do with this, but in the summer his office (now designated IV B 4 and, significantly, no longer concerned with emigration) was called upon to investigate ways to dispose of 'unwanted' Jews.
By this time decisions had already been taken to murder those Jews in the Polish ghettos who were not deemed capable of work. Eichmann was advised to check on how it was being done. Over a few months he saw gassing operations at Chelm, mass shootings in Minsk, and visited Auschwitz. He prepared the ground for the Wannsee Conference in January 1942, at which Heydrich secured the co-operation of the various departments of state, the Nazi party and the SS in the 'Final Solution of the Jewish Question'.
'He made numerous interventions to prevent a single Jew being exempted from the transports.'
Eichmann later claimed that he was shocked to hear that 'evacuation to the east' meant death, but the concurrence of high-ranking officials absolved him of responsibility and guilt. It is hard to reconcile this with the zeal he devoted to organising the registration, expropriation, rounding up and deportation of Jews from Germany, Austria, France, Holland, Belgium, Slovakia, Greece, Italy and, above all, from Hungary to the death camps. He sent out trusted assistants to make the local arrangements, chivvied them if they did not make fast enough progress, and belaboured officials who prevaricated or objected. He made numerous interventions to prevent a single Jew being exempted from the transports.
In March 1944, after German forces invaded Hungary, he travelled to Budapest with a special task force and personally directed the plunder, ghettoisation, and deportation of over 437,000 Jews in the space of eight weeks, most of whom were murdered on arrival in Auschwitz-Birkenau. When, under international pressure, the Hungarian regime stopped the deportations he circumvented its orders and dispatched a last trainload to the gas chambers. He even defied his chief, Himmler, who at the end of 1944 finally commanded the killing to stop.
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