Hunting Eichmann: Chasing Down the World's Most Notorious Nazi - Hardcover

Bascomb, Neal

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 1847247385 ISBN 13: 9781847247384

Publisher: Quercus, 2009

Synopsis

By early May 1945, Hitler's Germany was defeated and its cities in ruins. The Führer, his empire squeezed out of existence by the advancing Allied armies, was dead by his own hand, as were his lieutenants, Himmler and Goebbels. In the first weeks of the Allied occupation, other leading Nazis - including Goering, Ribbentrop and Speer - fell, one by one, into Allied custody.

But one man, his hands as steeped in blood as any, would evade the judgment that awaited his colleagues at Nuremburg. He was SS Obersturmbannführer Adolf Eichmann, Chief of Department IVB4 of the Reich Main Security Office, and operational manager of the genocide that despatched 5 million European Jews to the gas chambers. Escaping US custody in 1946, he hid in various locations in Germany before absconding in 1950 via a 'ratline' escape route to Argentina, where he lived, undisturbed, for the next decade. On 11 May 1960 he was captured in an operation of breathtaking skill and daring by a team of Mossad agents in a Buenos Aires suburb. Smuggled out of Argentina to Israel, Eichmann was indicted there on charges of crimes against humanity, and hanged on 1 June 1962.

Part history, part detective story, part international thriller, Hunting Eichmann brings the story of the 15-year search for Eichmann more thrillingly, more accurately, more completely to life than ever before. Archival research on three continents and interviews both with survivors of the Mossad operation and with those who knew Eichmann in Argentina, have enabled the author not only to reveal details of the abduction that have never before been published, but also to uncover new information on how Eichmann was able to remain free for so long. In addition, his researches reveal the full extent of US negligence in hunting down war criminals and its protection of high-level German officials.

About this title

Review:

There's no greater satisfaction than seeing someone guilty of great evil being brought to justice, and few people in history have been guilty of more than Adolf Eichmann. Neal Bascomb tells that story of his capture with great verve and a novelist's eye for suspense' Adam Hochschild.

A riveting and passionate account of one of history's most fascinating - and morally significant - secret operations' Michael Oren.

A superbly researched story of brilliant deception and deadly intrigue ... as comprehensive an account of the operation as we're likely to get. It's an extraordinarily gripping and disturbing read.' Mail on Sunday.

From the Back Cover:

Adolf Eichmann was the operational manager of the genocide that dispatched six million European Jews to the gas chambers. Escaping US custody in 1946, he hid in various locations in Germany before absconding in 1950 via a 'ratline' escape route to Argentina, where he lived, undisturbed, for the next decade. On 11 May 1960, he was captured in an operation of breathtaking skill and daring by a team of Mossad agents in a Buenos Aires suburb. Smuggled out of Argentina to Israel, Eichmann was indicted there on charges of crimes against humanity, and hanged on 1 June 1962.
Part history, part detective story, part international thriller, Hunting Eichmann brings the story of the fifteen-year search for Eichmann more thrillingly, more accurately, more completely to life than ever before. Superbly researched and relentlessly paced, Hunting Eichmann brings us closer to understanding the architect of the Holocaust than ever before - a man whose terrifying ordinariness came to embody the 'banality of evil'.

About this edition

• Publisher: Quercus
• Publication date: 2009
• ISBN 10: 1847247385
• ISBN 13: 9781847247384
• Binding: Hardcover
• Number of pages: 408