Tuesday 5 July 2022 12:42 PM Nazi Adolf Eichmann is heard admitting to devising 'Final Solution' in newly ... trends now
Audio recordings of the architect of the Holocaust boasting about his actions have been made public for the first time, 60 years after his execution for crimes against humanity.
Adolf Eichmann recorded 70 hours of interviews in Argentina, having fled to Buenos Aires after the war. The audio has remained under lock and key and is only being broadcast now thanks to the dogged efforts of a team of Israeli documentary makers.
They were given 15 hours of surviving recordings - the interviewer taped over much of the rest - in which Eichmann, who went to the gallows denying his crimes, admits to his role in what he infamously dubbed his 'Final Solution.'
'If we had killed 10.3 million Jews, I would say with satisfaction, 'Good, we destroyed an enemy,'' Eichmann says.
'Then we would have fulfilled our mission.'
Adolf Eichmann is described as the mastermind behind the Holocaust. He fled to Argentina after the war, and in 1957 recorded a series of interviews about his role in Nazi Germany. The tapes are only being made public now, thanks to two Israeli documentary makers
In another clip, the Nazi officer states: 'Jews who are fit to work should be sent to work. Jews who are not fit to work must be sent to the Final Solution, period.'
He said that he 'did not care' whether those sent to Auschwitz lived or died.
The audio recordings form part of the $3 million documentary The Devil's Confession, which has gripped Israeli TV viewers.
Many of those watching are relatives of the six million Jews estimated to have been exterminated during the Eichmann-created Holocaust, which killed 11 million in total.
The sheer depth of Eichman's anti-Semitism was further revealed by a throwaway remark about an insect in the room while he was recording the tapes.
At one point, Eichmann can be heard swatting a fly that was buzzing around the room and describing it as having 'a Jewish nature.'
After World War Two, Eichmann managed to flee to Argentina, where he was captured by agents from Israel's Mossad secret service agency in May 1960.
He was subsequently flown back to Israel and put on trial in Jerusalem the following year, before being convicted and hanged in 1962.
During those hearings, Eichmann was filmed claiming he was only a low-ranking functionary, but in the interviews he is open about his scheme.
'It's a difficult thing that I am telling you and I know I will be judged for it,' he admits.
'But I cannot tell you otherwise. It's the truth. Why should I deny it?
'Nothing annoys me more than a person who later denies the things he has done.'
Eichmann is seen in December 1961, during his trial in Jerusalem. He was found guilty of crimes against humanity, war crimes and murder and hanged the following year
Eichmann is pictured during his trial in Israel in 1961
Eichmann was convicted on all 15 counts, and hanged months later
The interviews were carried out in 1957 by a Dutch Nazi sympathizer and propagandist, Willem Sassen - who in later life did PR for Augusto Pinochet, the Chilean dictator, and Paraguay's Alfredo Stroessner.
Sassen, after Eichmann's capture, sold part of the transcript to Life magazine, but critics said it was highly sanitized.
The court in Jerusalem had access to 700 pages of transcript, with corrections made by Eichmann's own hand, but Eichmann claimed that the transcripts distorted his words and the Supreme Court of Israel did not accept them as evidence
During the trial, Eichmann taunted the chief prosecutor, Gideon Hausner, to produce the original tapes, knowing they were protected by Nazi sympathizers.
Hausner was offered the tapes for $20,000 - a huge sum at the time - and considered purchasing them, but the seller insisted they not be brought to Israel until after the trial had concluded.
The original tapes had been sold to a publishing house in Europe, and eventually bought by an anonymous firm which handed them over to the German federal archives in Koblenz, with instructions that they should be used only for academic
