For the first time ever, the handwritten memoirs of Nazi Adolf Eichmann, implementer of the “Final Solution,” has surfaced, and in it Hitler’s concentration camp chief denied responsibility and further claims that the Catholic Church helped him escape Germany and a certain death sentence at the Nuremberg trials.
“I did not kill or torture anyone. I never gave an order to do so; and to my best knowledge and conscience, neither any subordinate men, NCO’s or officer’s’,” he wrote while awaiting trial in Israel after being captured in 1960 in Argentina by the Mossad.
He was responsible for the deportation and extermination of millions of Jews at concentration camps, a crime he hung for on June 1, 1962 in Israel.
This historic manuscript is hitting the auction block February 10 and is expected to get up to $800,000. Bill Panagopulos, president of Alexander Historical Auctions of Chesapeake City, Md., told Secrets that it has never been seen.
He also said that it is not being sold by members of the Eichmann family. “It was undoubtedly smuggled from Eichmann’s cell and was probably originally placed in the hands of his attorney, Robert Servatius,” he said.
Alexander, which holds regular auctions of historical papers and artifacts, has a record for uncovering and auctioning critical World War II items. In 2011 they offered the diary of Josef Mengele, the so-called Nazi “Angel of Death” who performed experiments on concentration camp prisoners.
In this diary, Eichmann revealed that he met Mengele while in Argentina. He recalled that after his capture, “one member of the Israeli assault commando … asked of the whereabouts of a Dr. Mengele … unfortunately I responded that it would be a betrayal of a comrade … an automatic reaction … I saw this man for the first time in my life in Argentina.”
He also said that the Catholic Church aided his escape from Germany, though it is unclear if the church knew who he was. Upon reaching the Italian border, he wrote, “my suitcase was brought by a cleric of the Roman Catholic Church to the tavern on the Italian side.” And in Milan, he added, “the office of the International Red Cross issued refugee papers … only my name was new, I like the sound of it … I practiced my new signature … clerics of the Roman Catholic Church helped me, without asking who I was … as before me the Jews. I greet you brother Bernardus …”
His denials of having any personal responsibility for sending millions to the death camps cover a number of pages, but one excerpt shows that he may have also begun to slide towards insanity. He emphatically scribbles an imaginary discussion between his alias “Ricardo Klement” and himself: “…Klement spoke to Eichmann ‘was it necessary, the killing…where is the reward. Why did you participate?’…Orders! Orders! Orders! You crossed the line of awareness…awakening demonic forces…murder…state sanctioned by the needs and wants of the government…”
Here is how the 296-page diary is being presented in Alexander’s catalog:
Paul Bedard, the Washington Examiner’s “Washington Secrets” columnist, can be contacted at [email protected].
