Home Fortune telling Adolf Eichmann and the sorcerers. Adolf Eichmann: biography and crimes A process with an inevitable outcome

Fortune telling

Adolf Eichmann and the sorcerers. Adolf Eichmann: biography and crimes A process with an inevitable outcome

Jewish question. Born into a family of an accountant. In 1914, the family moved to the city of Lina (Austria). He attended high school, but did not receive a certificate; he studied at a technical school for two years, majoring in mechanics, but did not receive a diploma. Having changed several jobs, in 1928–32. worked as a traveling agent for an American oil company. In 1933, under the influence of one of the leaders of the Austrian Nazis, the future head of the Main Security Directorate of the Third Reich, E. Kaltenbrunner, he joined the National Socialist Party (see Nazism) of Austria. In 1933 he was fired from his job, in the same year he moved to Germany and was drafted into the Austrian SS unit (see SS and SD). Then he served in the Dachau concentration camp.

In 1934 he joined the SD Main Directorate in Berlin. He was an employee of the department that dealt with the activities of the Freemasons. In 1935 he moved to the newly created Jewish department, where he was considered a major specialist on the Jewish question. He took an active part in meetings devoted to the Jewish question, and was one of the main initiators of the measures that the SS and SD used against the Jews. During this period, the leaders of Nazi Germany were interested in a sharp increase in the emigration of Jews to other countries; The SS and SD were instructed to develop a set of measures that would force Jews into mass emigration. In the fall of 1937, Eichmann was sent to Eretz Israel and Egypt. He came to the conclusion that increased emigration of Jews from Germany to Eretz Israel was undesirable for the Third Reich, since Germany was not interested in and should not contribute to the creation of a Jewish state. He wanted to expand his knowledge regarding Jews, even tried to study Yiddish and Hebrew, and became acquainted with the activities of Zionist organizations.

After the Anschluss of Austria (March 13, 1938), Eichmann was sent to Vienna to organize the mass emigration of Jews there. He created a system of forced emigration, where Jews were forced to leave under the influence of persecution, beatings and abuse, as well as confiscation of their property and forcing the leaders of Jewish organizations to cooperate with the Nazi authorities. In Vienna on August 20, 1938, the central institution for Jewish emigration opened, under the direction of Eichmann. After the occupation of Czechoslovakia and the creation of the Protectorate of Bohemia and Moravia, Eichmann introduced a system of forced emigration into the territory of the Protectorate. On July 27, a central institution for the emigration of Jews (modeled on the Viennese one) was created in Prague, which was also led by Eichmann. After the creation in September 1939 of the Main Directorate of State Security under the leadership of Heydrich, one of the main parts of this institution became the Gestapo, the Jewish department of which was headed by Eichmann. In March 1941 the department was transformed into a special department for Jewish affairs (IV B4).

In 1939–40 Eichmann played a major role in the implementation of plans to expel Jews and Poles from occupied Polish lands, which were then annexed by the Third Reich. At the same time, he led the implementation of the so-called Nisko Plan - an attempt to concentrate a huge number of Jews in the Lublin area (“Lublin Reservation”; see Holocaust. Nazi policy of extermination of the Jewish people and stages of the Holocaust. Second stage). Eichmann's collaborators operated in all countries conquered by Germany, carrying out anti-Jewish measures in cooperation with local authorities.

In the spring of 1941, the policy of the Nazi leadership changed - Jewish emigration was prohibited. In May 1941, the term “final solution” to the Jewish question began to be used, implying the total extermination of the Jews of Europe. After the outbreak of the Soviet-German War (June 22, 1941), the Nazis began to implement the “Final Solution.”

In November 1941, Eichmann was awarded the rank of SS Ober-Sturmbannführer (lieutenant colonel). He exercised central control over all operations for the deportation of European Jews to death camps, played an active role in the preparation and conduct of the Wannsee Conference and the implementation of its decisions on the extermination of Jews. He visited death camps several times, including Auschwitz, and knew the entire extermination process in detail. Representatives of Eichmann's department actively acted in the states dependent on Germany (Slovakia, Romania, Bulgaria), encouraging local authorities to expel Jews. Eichmann was also responsible for the confiscation of Jewish property and the sterilization of persons intermarried with Jews and their descendants. Under the leadership of Eichmann, a “demonstration ghetto” was created in Theresienstadt (see Terezin) in order to deceive the world community, however, from there, 88 thousand people were deported to death camps, and 33 thousand died from inhuman conditions in the ghetto.

According to the testimony of many Nazis, including Eichmann's employees, he was fanatically devoted to the idea of exterminating the Jews of Europe and even in a number of cases sabotaged the orders of G. Himmler if they could slow down the process of extermination of Jews or save individual victims. Thus, one of Eichmann’s closest collaborators, D. Wisliceny, wrote about Eichmann while in prison: “Based on my personal experience, I once again affirm that, although Eichmann acted on the orders of Hitler and Himmler, his personal participation in the extermination of European Jews was decisive, and he should be considered fully responsible for this, since it made it possible to circumvent Hitler’s order.”

At the end of the war, Eichmann was arrested by the Allies, but was not identified. He fled, hid, and in 1950, with the help of Vatican representatives, he left for Argentina. Settled in Buenos Aires with his wife and three children. In May 1960, Eichmann was tracked down and captured in Argentina by agents of the Israeli intelligence service, the Mossad (full name X a-mosad le-modi‘in u-le-tafkidim meyuhadim - “Establishment for Intelligence and Special Operations”), which was headed by I. X ar'el. Eichmann was secretly brought to Israel and handed over to the police. At a Knesset meeting on May 22, Israeli Prime Minister D. Ben-Gurion announced that “Adolf Eichmann is in Israel and will soon be brought to justice.”

In Israel, Eichmann was immediately arrested by court order, and this order was periodically renewed. A specially created police department (institution 06) was involved in the investigation of Eichmann's activities. After the end of the investigation, legal adviser to the government G. X Ausner (1915–90) signed a 15-count indictment. Eichmann was accused of crimes against the Jewish people, crimes against humanity, and membership in criminal organizations (SS and SD, Gestapo). Crimes against the Jewish people included all types of persecution, including the arrest of millions of Jews, concentration of them in certain places, sending them to death camps, murder and confiscation of property. The indictment dealt not only with crimes against the Jewish people, but also with crimes against representatives of other nations: the deportation of millions of Poles, the arrest and sending to death camps of tens of thousands of Roma, the sending of 100 children from the Czech village of Lidice to the Lodz ghetto and their extermination in revenge for the murder of R. Heydrich by Czech underground fighters. The indictment was based on the 1950 Law for the Punishment of Nazi Criminals and Their Helpers.

On April 11, 1961, the Eichmann trial began in the Jerusalem District Court. The chairman of the court was a member of the Supreme Court M. Landoy, the judges were B. X Alevi (1910–66) and I. Rave. The prosecution was supported by a group of prosecutors led by G. X Ausner. The defense was led by German lawyer Dr. R. Servatius, who in the past defended a number of defendants during international trials of Nazi criminals in Nuremberg and other countries.

Immediately after the start of the trial, R. Servatius made a number of statements denying the legal competence of the Israeli court. He wrote that the three judges, who represented the Jewish people and were citizens of the State of Israel, would not be able to administer a fair trial in this case. He argued that Eichmann could not be tried in Israel since he had been kidnapped in Argentina, where he lived, and brought to Israel against his wishes. The law on the prosecution of Nazis and their collaborators was passed in 1950, and it is impossible to prosecute crimes committed before the adoption of this law, since the validity of the law cannot be applied retroactively. R. Servatius tried to prove that the crimes of which Eichmann is accused were committed outside the territory of the State of Israel and before the creation of the state.

On the prosecution side, more than 100 witnesses spoke at the trial and 1,600 documents were provided, most of which were signed by Eichmann. The testimony and documents presented by the prosecution fully showed all types of persecution: the introduction of anti-Jewish legislation, incitement to hatred of the Jewish minority, the looting of Jewish property, the imprisonment of Jews in ghettos and concentration camps, the deportation of the Jewish population of Europe to death camps. The prosecution revealed what happened to Jews in countries occupied or controlled by Nazi Germany. During the court hearings, the role of Eichmann, head of the Gestapo Department IV B4, was revealed at all stages of the “final solution” process. He exercised leadership and control over the sending of all trains with Jews to the death camps.

The defense did not try to cast doubt on the documents presented, but tried to prove that Eichmann was nothing more than a “cog” in a colossal apparatus of destruction and he only carried out the orders received. The court did not take this approach into account and rejected it decisively, pointing out that Eichmann completely identified himself with the work entrusted to him, pursued it with fanaticism, and in the last stage of the war the desire to destroy as many Jews as possible became an obsession. This was especially evident in 1944 in Hungary, when Eichmann showed particular cruelty in exterminating Jews, in some cases actually sabotaging Himmler’s orders.

On December 15, 1961, the court sentenced A. Eichmann to death, finding him guilty of crimes against the Jewish people, against humanity and a war criminal. Eichmann's lawyer appealed to the Supreme Court, which rejected it on May 29, 1962 and confirmed the verdict of the first instance. The Israeli President also rejected Eichmann's request for clemency. Eichmann was hanged in the city of Ramla on the night of May 31 to June 1, 1962. His body was burned and his ashes scattered over the Mediterranean Sea outside Israeli territorial waters.

The significance of the Eichmann trial is enormous not only for Jews. The trial was attended by numerous representatives of the international media. The verdict was perceived throughout the world as a triumph of historical justice. The Eichmann trial made a particular impression in Germany.

Citizens of Israel, especially young people, listening to the testimony of numerous witnesses, learned how the machine of destruction worked, how everything was done to make the slightest resistance impossible, and how, despite this entire perfect system of suppression of the individual, heroic uprisings broke out in the ghettos of Warsaw, Bialystok, death camps Sobibor, Treblinka, and hundreds of other places.

On February 29, 2000, by order of the Israeli government, Eichmann's diaries were published. The diaries are a striking document in which one of the main criminals responsible for the Holocaust characterized it as follows: “I saw hell and the devil, death, I saw monstrous things. I witnessed destructive madness." In his diaries, Eichmann described the extermination of Jews in various European countries. He wrote about the extermination of Jews in Chelmno (Poland): “What I saw there filled me with horror. I saw how naked Jews and Jewish women were forced into a closed bus without windows. After the doors were closed, the engine was turned on. The exhaust gas was entering the closed bus... I couldn't take it anymore. I didn't have words to describe my feelings. It all seemed fantastic." In his diaries, Eichmann in every possible way downplays his role in carrying out the Holocaust and tries to imagine himself as “one of those horses that drags a cart and cannot turn anywhere, since the coachman does not allow it...” He wrote: “It was not in my power to stop this the car - just as it was not in my power to start it. There were too many of those who ordered the extermination of Jews... What could a man with the rank of chief lieutenant do? Nothing!" Legal adviser to the Israeli government, E. Rubinstein, said that the diaries were published because they could “help in the fight against those who are trying to deny what happened.”

Eichmann's diaries were actively used by the defense in the Royal Court in London during the trial, during which the claim of the English historian D. Irving against the American historian Deborah Lipstadt was examined. D. Irving, a famous historian who denies the Holocaust and the existence of gas chambers, was accused by D. Lipstadt of lying and distorting historical truths. On April 11, 2000, the Royal Court in London ruled that D. Lipstadt was completely correct in calling D. Irving a racist and anti-Semite and claiming that he “distorts, misquotes and falsifies.”

After the end of World War II, the issue of punishing Nazi war criminals became acute in Europe. The Nuremberg Tribunal sentenced the leaders of the Nazis, but those who implemented their misanthropic plans have not yet received what they deserved.

In relation to war criminals, the world very quickly divided into “irreconcilable” and “merciful”. In countries that fully experienced the horrors of the Nazi occupation, the persecution of Hitler's executioners continued for decades. In Western European countries, conversations about the need to “understand and forgive” began a few years after the end of the war. Those whose cases did end up in court often received very lenient punishments, in no way commensurate with the gravity of the crime.

Goal number one

The growing Cold War helped many of the war criminals escape justice. High-ranking Nazis found themselves under the tutelage of the CIA in the United States, where their experience was used to fight the Soviet Union and other countries of the socialist camp.

Israel was among the states that were not going to forget and forgive anything. From the very moment of its proclamation in 1948, one of the most important tasks of the independent Jewish state was the prosecution and punishment of the perpetrators of the Holocaust - the extermination of the Jewish population of Europe, the victims of which were about 6 million people.

The search for Nazi criminals was carried out by both Jewish activists and the newly created Israeli political intelligence service, the Mossad.

“Target number one” for the Mossad was Adolf Eichmann, Head of Sector IV B 4 Directorate IV RSHA, directly supervised the “final solution of the Jewish question.” Eichmann was one of the organizers and participants in the so-called “Wansee Conference” on January 20, 1942, at which the leadership of the Third Reich actually authorized the start of the mass extermination of the Jewish population of Europe. Eichmann was also the main executor of the decisions made, directing the deportations of Jews and their extermination in “death camps.”

Secrets of the "rat trail"

By the time the war ended, Adolf Eichmann was only 39 years old, and he had no intention of surrendering to justice or committing suicide. True, he was arrested by the Americans, who established that in front of them was an SS officer. But Eichmann pretended to be an officer of the SS cavalry division and, while the Yankees were checking this information, escaped from the camp.

Here his traces were lost for a long time. As it turned out later, Eichmann used the so-called “rat trail” - a channel established by Vatican representatives for transporting fugitive Nazis to South America.

Eichmann Red Cross certificate issued in the name of Ricardo Clement. Photo: Commons.wikimedia.org

In 1950, Eichmann was legalized in Argentina under the name Ricardo Clementa. After a couple of years, he became so bold that he came to Europe, married his own wife, but under a new name, and took his family to South America.

Eichmann-Klement disappeared among the vast German diaspora in Argentina. The authorities of this country willingly granted residence rights to former intelligence officers of the Third Reich, and some of them even actively worked in the army and military intelligence structures of Argentina.

What did the CIA archives hide?

Eichmann, however, was not included in this number. He understood perfectly well that he was too noticeable a figure, and was aware that he was being hunted.

However, for several years the Mossad could not pick up his trail. Intelligence information suggested that he might be in South America, but there was no clearer information.

While the Mossad was conducting its search, Eichmann's name and place of residence were known to the US CIA. The CIA leadership did not dare to use the master of mass destruction of people for their own purposes, but they also did not report this information to Israel.

This fact was revealed in 2006, when documents from the CIA archives were declassified. On March 19, 1958, the CIA received information from the West German intelligence service BND about Eichmann's whereabouts and the name under which he was hiding. The CIA and BND decided to hide this.

To be fair, it must be said that the Americans did not save Eichmann. They feared that he might reveal his Nazi past when arrested. Hans Globke, who then held the post Head of the Secretariat of German Chancellor Konrad Adenauer.

The sightless man's insight

But the Mossad reached Eichmann without the help of the Americans. Lothar Hermann, a blind German Jew, married to a German woman and living in Argentina, once heard from his own daughter a story about her new acquaintance of a young man. The guy boasted that his father was a big man in the Third Reich. The braggart's name was Nicholas Eichmann.

Hermann, who was keenly interested in the search for Nazi criminals and knew about the search for Adolf Eichmann, came to the conclusion that his daughter’s new acquaintance was the son of one of the organizers of the Holocaust.

Herman conveyed information about his suspicions to the Israelis.

Mossad agents began to follow Ricardo Clement, whose address was established thanks to the help of Lothar Herman. This man fully fit the description of Eichmann, but Israeli intelligence officers were confused by the too modest life of his family. It was assumed that the Nazi who fled to Argentina owns a multimillion-dollar fortune.

Steal at all costs

While Mossad agents were tormented by doubts, Clement and his family suddenly moved to an unknown direction. It took more than a year to find him again in Argentina. However, in December 1959, Clement's new place of residence was discovered.

More and more facts pointed to the fact that we were talking about Eichmann. This was finally established on March 21, 1960, when the Clement couple celebrated some big family holiday. A study of Eichmann's biography showed that on this day he and his wife were supposed to celebrate their 25th wedding anniversary.

The question arose: what to do next? The official request for Eichmann's extradition did not promise success. As already mentioned, the Argentine authorities were extremely loyal to the former Nazis, and such an appeal from Israel would most likely have resulted in a new escape.

The Israeli government then authorized an operation to kidnap Adolf Eichmann and bring him to Israel. The head of the operation was appointed Mossad Director Isser Harel. The task force for action in Argentina included exclusively volunteers from among those who personally suffered from the Nazis or lost loved ones in German “death camps.” If they failed, the intelligence officers had to declare themselves activists who had nothing to do with either the Mossad or the Israeli government.

Only one chance

Former Nazis living in Argentina knew very well that they were being hunted and were on their guard. Therefore, secrecy was the strictest. A travel company was specially created to transport the task force to Argentina. All agents arrived at different times and from different countries.

But how can the kidnapped Eichmann be taken out of Argentina in the absence of air traffic between the countries? Mossad decides to take out a Nazi under the guise of... the pilot of an airplane bringing an Israeli government delegation to celebrate the 150th anniversary of Argentine independence. The delegation's plane arrived on May 19, 1960, and flew back on May 20. This meant that Mossad operatives had no room for error.

By the end of April 1960, three dozen people worked in the Mossad task force in Argentina, and they were personally headed by intelligence director Isser Harel.

Eichmann was constantly being watched. Basic and backup options were developed, as well as several escape routes and facilities where the abducted person could be kept.

Kidnap in 20 seconds

Two cars with Mossad operatives were waiting for him not far from his house. Eichmann usually arrived by bus around seven o'clock in the evening, but this time he was delayed. Just when the Israelis began to think that Eichmann had disappeared again, he finally appeared.

When the man heading towards the house came within a few meters of the ambush, Israeli agents attacked him. Eichmann was quickly grabbed and pushed into the car. The entire seizure took place in 20 seconds, and there was not a single witness to what was happening on the street.

Eichmann was gagged, his hands and feet were tied, he was put on dark glasses and covered with a blanket. He was taken by car to a villa in the suburbs of Buenos Aires, where he was first interrogated.

The shocked Eichmann did not deny it and confirmed that he was exactly the one the Israelis were looking for.

He was placed under 24-hour guard and chained to his bed. He always wore dark glasses, which did not allow him to see the faces of his guards. The operatives were strictly forbidden to talk with Eichmann.

The Nazi was taken out under the guise of a wounded pilot

Eichmann was kept in the villa for nine days, continuing to be interrogated. As Mossad representatives subsequently assured, during this time the detained Nazi confessed and personally wrote his consent to have his trial take place in Israel. How voluntary Eichmann’s consent was, only he knew.

On May 20, 1960, a medic who was part of a Mossad task force drugged Eichmann. After this, the former Nazi was dressed in the uniform of an Israeli pilot and taken to the airport. The final touch to ensure the legend was a fictitious car accident involving the pilot Rafael Arnon, who was discharged from the hospital on May 20 with the indication that “... the patient can endure the flight under medical supervision.” It was according to Arnon's documents that Adolf Eichmann was brought on board the plane of the Israeli government delegation.

At this time, Nazi veterans, who learned about Eichmann’s disappearance, searched the area around Buenos Aires, but it was too late.

A few hours later in Jerusalem, Adolf Eichmann was handed over to the Israeli police. Two days later, a world sensation broke out: Israeli Prime Minister Ben-Gurion announced that Adolf Eichmann would appear in an Israeli court.

A process with an inevitable outcome

Following the sensation, an international scandal erupted: Argentina accused Israel of illegal abduction. Israel denied that Eichmann was kidnapped by government agencies, saying that community volunteers acted in Buenos Aires. Few people believed this, but Argentina failed to prove otherwise.

Of course, Israel was not afraid of international condemnation. What did it mean compared to the possibility of trying a Nazi responsible for the death of 6 million Jews?

On April 11, 1961, the trial of Adolf Eichmann began in the Jerusalem District Court. A trial whose inevitable outcome was obvious to both the prosecutors, the defense, and even the accused himself.

It was impossible to challenge the more than 1,500 documents signed by Eichmann personally. It was also impossible to challenge the testimony of dozens of witnesses to the crimes organized by Eichmann.

Adolf Eichmann at his trial (photo April 5, 1961). Photo: Commons.wikimedia.org / Israel Government Press Office

The defense did not argue with the documents, focusing on challenging the legality of Eichmann's trial in Israel, a state that did not yet exist at the time the crimes were committed. The lawyers then insisted that Eichmann was just a simple executor in the system of the Third Reich, a sort of “victim of insurmountable circumstances.”

Retribution

The death penalty was abolished in Israel back in 1954. Abolished with one exception - its use was allowed against persons guilty of genocide. The Israeli court used this exception only once - on December 15, 1961, Adolf Eichmann was sentenced to death for crimes against the Jewish people, against humanity and war crimes.

All of Eichmann's appeals and petitions were rejected.

He was executed on the night of May 31 to June 1, 1962 in the prison of the city of Ramle. The sentence was carried out Shalom Nagar, one of the 22 jailers who guarded Eichmann in prison.

The body of the executed man was burned in the prison yard, in an oven specially prepared for such an occasion. The ashes were collected and taken on a police boat to the neutral waters of the Mediterranean Sea, where they were scattered.

Thus ended the story of one of the main Nazi criminals and one of the most successful Israeli intelligence operations.

Adolf Eichmann(Adolf Otto Eichmann; German. Adolf Otto Eichmann, 1906-1962), German officer, employee of the Gestapo, directly responsible for the extermination of Jews.

Born March 19, 1906 in Solingen. He was in charge of the Gestapo department IV-B-4, responsible for the “final solution to the Jewish question.” Obersturmbannführer (lieutenant colonel) of the SS. After the war he hid from trial in South America. Here, agents of the Israeli intelligence service Mossad tracked him down, kidnapped him and took him to Israel, where he was sentenced to death.

Father - Adolf Karl Eichmann was an accountant at the Electric Tram Company (Solingen), in 1913 he was transferred to the Electric Tram Company in the city of Linz on the Danube (Austria), where he worked until 1924 as commercial director. For several decades he was a public elder of the evangelical church community in Linz. He was married twice (the second time in 1916).

Mother - Maria Eichmann , born Schefferling , died in 1916. Brothers - Emil, born in 1908; Helmut, born in 1909, died in Stalingrad; youngest - Otto. Sister - Irmgard, born in 1910 or 1911.

In 1914, the father moved the family to Linz, where they lived in an apartment building in the city center at Bischofstrasse 3.

Adolf Eichmann as a child

Until the 4th grade he attended primary school in Linz (1913-1917). Adolf Hitler used to go to this same school. Then Eichmann entered a real school (State Real School named after Kaiser Franz Josef, after the revolution - Federal Real School), where he also studied until the 4th grade (1917-1921). At the age of 15, after graduating from college, he entered the state Higher Federal School of Electrical Engineering, Mechanical Engineering and Construction (Linz), where he studied for four semesters.

By this time, Adolf's father had retired early because he had opened his own business. First, he founded a mining company in Salzburg, in which he had 51 percent of the shares (the mine was between Salzburg and the border, production died out at the very beginning). Also in Salzburg, he became a co-owner of an engineering company that made locomotives. He also took part in an enterprise for the construction of mills on the Inn River in Upper Austria. Due to the economic crisis in Austria, he lost his invested money, closed the mining company, but still paid mining rent to the treasury for many years.

Adolf was not the most diligent student, his father took him from school and sent him to work in his own mine, where they were going to extract resin from oil shale and shale oil for medical purposes. About ten people were employed in production. He worked at the mine for about three months.

He was then assigned as an apprentice to the Upper Austrian Electric Company, where he studied electrical engineering for two and a half years.

In 1928, his parents helped 22-year-old Adolf get a job as a traveling representative at the Vacuum Oil company. His responsibilities included serving a large area in Upper Austria. Basically, he was engaged in installing gasoline pumps in his area and ensuring the supply of kerosene, because these places were poorly electrified.

Eichmann's friend Friedrich von Schmidt , who had connections in the military environment, brought him to the “Youth Union of Front-line Soldiers” (the youth branch of the German-Austrian Association of Front-line Soldiers). Most members of the union were monarchist-minded.

By 1931, nationalist sentiments were growing in Austria, NSDAP meetings were held, and the SS recruited people in Linz from the association of front-line soldiers, since members of the association were allowed to engage in rifle training.

In 1933, the Vacuum Oil company transferred Adolf to Salzburg. Every Friday he returned to Linz and served in the SS there. On June 19, 1933, Chancellor Dollfuss banned the activities of the National Socialist Workers' Party in Austria. Soon after, Eichmann was fired from Vacuum Oil because of his SS membership, after which he moved to Germany.

Upon arrival in Germany, Adolf Eichmann presented himself with a letter of recommendation from Kaltenbrunner to the exiled Gauleiter of Upper Austria Bolleck. Bolleck offered to join the Austrian Legion, located in Kloster-Lechfeld. Eichmann ended up in an assault squad, where he trained mainly in street fighting.

He was then transferred to Passau as an assistant to the chief of the communications staff of the Reichsführer SS, Sturmbannführer (Major) von Pichl, where Eichmann wrote letters and reports to Himmler's department in Munich. By this time he had received the rank of Unterscharführer (non-commissioned officer). In 1934, this headquarters was abolished, Eichmann was transferred to the battalion of the German regiment in Dachau, where he remained until September 1934.

At the same time, he learned about the recruitment of people who had already served in the security service of Reichsführer SS Himmler. He applied and was accepted into the Reich Security Service (SD), but he would not be tasked with guarding Himmler, as he had imagined, but with routine clerical work systematizing the Masonic file cabinet.

In 1935, Adolf Eichmann married a girl from an old peasant family of staunch Catholics.

In the second half of 1935, Untersturmführer von Mildenstein invited Eichmann to move to the “Jews” department he had just organized in the SD Main Directorate. Mildenstein instructed Adolf to compile a reference to Theodor Herzl's book The Jewish State, which was then used as an official circular for internal use in the SS.

At the beginning of 1936, Dieter Wisliceny became the head of the department, in which, in addition to Eichmann, there was another employee - Theodor Dannecker. The Reich government wanted to resolve the Jewish question and during this period the department was faced with the task of facilitating the speedy forced emigration of Jews from Germany.

In 1936, Eichmann received the rank of Oberscharführer (corresponding to Feldwebel - the senior category of non-commissioned officers of the Wehrmacht), and in 1937 - Hauptscharführer (Oberfeldwebel).

Later, Oberscharführer Hagen became the head of the department. From September 26 to October 2, 1937, Eichmann accompanied his boss to Palestine to get acquainted with the country, the invitation came from a representative of the Haganah, a Jewish military organization. However, the trip ended in failure due to the refusal of the British Consulate General in Cairo to issue them permission to enter Mandatory Palestine. The result of this was a meeting in Cairo between Haganah representative Polkes and Hagen and Eichmann, which Hagen detailed in his report CDLXXX-8, compiled from November 4 to 27, 1937.

After the Anschluss of Austria in 1938, Eichmann was transferred to the SD office in Vienna, where he was supposed to deal with Jewish affairs. On Eichmann's orders, Dr. Richard Löwenhertz, a representative of the Jewish community of Vienna, drew up a plan to organize the process of accelerated emigration of Jews. Then Eichmann achieved the creation in Vienna of a central institution for the emigration of Jews, after which the paperwork for leaving the country turned into a conveyor belt.

In April 1939, after the creation of the Protectorate of Bohemia and Moravia, Eichmann was transferred to Prague, where he continued to organize the deportation of Jews.

At the beginning of October 1939, Eichmann was included in the Reich Security Main Directorate (RSHA), created on September 27, 1939. He was appointed head of department IV B4.

In 1941 he visited Auschwitz, after which he authorized the sending of Jews to death camps. He took part in the Wannsee Conference on January 20, 1942, at which measures for the “final solution to the Jewish question” - the extermination of several million Jews - were discussed. Took minutes of the meeting. Direct leadership of this operation was entrusted to Eichmann. He was in a privileged position in the Gestapo, often receiving orders directly from Himmler, bypassing the immediate superiors of G. Müller and E. Kaltenbrunner. In March 1944 he headed the Sonderkommando, which organized the shipment of transport with Hungarian Jews from Budapest to Auschwitz. In August 1944, he presented a report to Himmler in which he reported on the extermination of 4 million Jews.

In 1945, after the defeat of Germany, Eichmann managed to hide from the Allied intelligence services who were looking for him. He was arrested by the Americans and could not hide his SS membership, but introduced himself as a member of the 22nd SS Cavalry Division. Realizing that he could be exposed, he escaped from prison.

Then, using the so-called “rat trail”, with the help of Franciscan monks, he managed to obtain an Argentine passport in the name Ricardo Clementa and in 1950 he moved to Argentina. There he went to work as an office worker at the local Mercedes-Benz branch.

In 1952, he came to Europe, married his own wife under a new name, and took his family to Argentina. Until May 1960 he lived in Buenos Aires.

On March 19, 1958, the US Central Intelligence Agency received information from the West German intelligence service BND about Eichmann's whereabouts and the name under which he was hiding. The CIA and BND decided to hide this information for fear that Eichmann might report the Nazi past of Hans Globke, who was then head of the secretariat of Chancellor Konrad Adenauer.

In 1958, the Israeli intelligence service Mossad tracked Eichmann to Argentina. Help in its discovery was provided by the German Jew Lothar Hermann, who suffered from the Nazis during the war. Despite the fact that he was blind, Lothar, living in Argentina, was interested in events related to the search for former Nazis, and was aware that Eichmann had disappeared and was wanted. So when he heard that his daughter had met a young man named Nicholas Eichmann , who boasted of his father’s services to the Third Reich, Hermann compared this information with what he knew, realized that he was talking about the son of Adolf Eichmann, and reported his suspicions.

The operation to capture Eichmann was personally led by Mossad director Isser Harel. Rafi Eitan was appointed head of the task force. All participants in the operation were volunteers. Most of them either suffered from the Nazis themselves during the war, or had relatives who died. They were all sternly warned that Eichmann had to be brought to Israel safe and sound. The full list of participants in the capture of Eichmann was classified in Israel until January 2007.

On May 11, 1960, right on the streets of Buenos Aires, Eichmann was captured by a group of Israeli agents. Eichmann was personally apprehended by Peter Malkin, later known as “agent seven forty” and “the man who caught Eichmann.” On May 20, anesthesiologist Yona Elian gave Eichmann a tranquilizer injection, after which he was flown to Israel as a sick crew member on an El Al plane that flew to Buenos Aires to celebrate the 150th anniversary of Argentine independence.

In Jerusalem, Eichmann was handed over to the police. At the Knesset meeting on May 22, Israeli Prime Minister David Ben-Gurion announced that " Adolf Eichmann is in Israel and will soon be brought to justice" The investigation into Eichmann's activities was carried out by a specially created police department - institution 006, consisting of 8 officers with excellent command of the German language. A trial was launched, during which many Holocaust survivor witnesses testified.

During the trial, the government of German Chancellor Konrad Adenauer planned to bribe an Israeli judge in an attempt to prevent the publication of the names of some high-ranking officials in his administration who collaborated with the Nazis.

After the investigation was completed, government legal adviser Gideon Hausner signed a 15-count indictment. Eichmann was accused of crimes against the Jewish people, crimes against humanity, and membership in criminal organizations (SS and SD, Gestapo). Crimes against the Jewish people included all types of persecution, including the arrest of millions of Jews, concentration of them in certain places, sending them to death camps, murder and confiscation of property. The indictment dealt not only with crimes against the Jewish people, but also with crimes against representatives of other nations: the deportation of millions of Poles, the arrest and sending to death camps of tens of thousands of Roma, the sending of 100 children from the Czech village of Lidice to the Lodz ghetto and their extermination in revenge for the murder of Reinhard Heydrich by Czech underground fighters.

On December 15, 1961, Eichmann was sentenced to death, finding him guilty of crimes against the Jewish people, against humanity and a war criminal.

Israeli President Yitzhak Ben-Zvi rejected the pardon request. Eichmann was hanged on the night of May 31 to June 1, 1962 in the Ramla prison; This is the second and last case of death penalty in Israel by a court verdict.

The trial of the Nazi executioner lasted almost six months. On December 1, 1961, Eichmann was sentenced to death, making history as the first and only Nazi criminal to be executed on the soil of Israel.

Refusing the hood, Eichmann told those present that he would soon meet with them again and die with faith in God.

The last word:

Long live Germany! Long live Argentina! Long live Austria! My whole life is connected with these three countries, and I will never forget them. I salute my wife, family and friends. I was obliged to follow the rules of war and served my banner. I'm ready.

The sentence was carried out by the senior prison warden Shalom Nagar . After the hanging, Eichmann's body was burned and the ashes were scattered in the Mediterranean Sea outside Israeli territorial waters.

From the testimony Dieter Wisliceny at the Nuremberg trials:

I pointed out to him that there were rumors abroad that Jews were being exterminated in Poland. I pointed out that the pope had made a statement addressed to the Slovak government. I pointed out that such actions, if they actually took place, could damage our prestige, that is, the prestige of Germany. For all these reasons I asked him to allow inspection. After a lengthy discussion, Eichmann told me that under no circumstances could he allow visits to the Polish ghettos. To my question “why?” he replied that most of the Jews were no longer alive. When I asked him who gave such an order, he told me that it was an order from Himmler. After that, I asked him to show me this order - because I could not imagine that such a written order really existed.

Question: Where were you at the time when this meeting with Eichmann took place?

Answer: This meeting took place in Berlin at Kurfürstenstraße 116, in the Eichmann institution.

Question: Okay. Continue answering the previous question. Tell us about the circumstances of the publication and the contents of the order.

Answer: Eichmann told me that he could show me this written order if it bothered my conscience. He took out a small folder from his safe, which he leafed through, and showed me a letter from Himmler to the Chief of the Security Police and the SD. This letter read approximately the following:

“The Fuhrer ordered the final resolution of the Jewish question. The resolution of this issue is entrusted to the chief of the security police and SD and the inspector of concentration camps. This so-called final solution does not yet apply to able-bodied Jewish men and women who are to be used for work in concentration camps.” This order was signed by Himmler himself. There can be no mistake here, since I know Himmler’s signature for sure. Question: To whom was this order addressed? Answer: To the Chief of Security Police and SD, this means to the office of the Chief of Security Police and SD. Question: Was it addressed to anyone else? Answer: Yes, to the concentration camp inspector. The order was addressed to these two institutions. Question: Was there any secrecy on this order? Answer: It was a top secret order. Question: When was it approximately published? Answer: This order was issued approximately in April 1942. Question: Who signed it? Answer: Himmler personally. Question: And you personally familiarized yourself with this order in Eichmann’s department? Answer: Yes. Eichmann handed me this document, and I saw this order myself. Question: Did you ask any questions regarding the meaning of the words “final decision” that were in the order? Answer: Eichmann explained to me the meaning of this expression. He said that the words "final solution" concealed the physical extermination of the Jewish race in the eastern regions. And in later discussions on this topic this expression "final solution" was constantly used. Question: Did you say anything to Eichmann regarding the powers that were granted to him by this order? Answer: Eichmann told me that he was personally entrusted with carrying out this order in the main Reich Security Office. To carry out this order, he received full authority from the Chief of the Security Police; he was personally responsible for the execution of this order. Question: Did you make any comments to Eichmann regarding his powers? Answer: Yes, it was obvious to me that this order meant a death sentence for millions of people. I said to Eichmann: “God forbid that our enemies should ever have the opportunity to inflict the same thing on the German people.” To this Eichmann told me that I should not be sentimental, that this was an order from the Fuhrer and that it must be carried out. Question: Regarding the Jews, what do you personally know about how many of them the “final decision” was made, that is, how many Jews were killed? Answer: It is very difficult for me to determine the exact number. I have only one starting point - a conversation between Eichmann and Hess in Vienna, during which he said that among the Jews brought from Greece to Auschwitz, very few turned out to be able to work; Of the Jews who arrived from Czechoslovakia and Hungary, 25-30% were able to work. So it's very difficult for me to pinpoint a reliable figure. Question: During the conferences with other specialists on the Jewish question and Eichmann, did you become aware or receive any information regarding the total number of Jews killed under this program? Answer: Eichmann personally always said the least about 4 million Jews, sometimes he called the figure 5 million. According to my personal estimate, at least 4 million Jews were covered by the so-called “final solution”. How many of them actually survived, I cannot say, of course. Question: When was the last time you saw Eichmann? Answer: The last time I saw Eichmann was at the end of February 1945 in Berlin. He said then that if the war was lost, he would commit suicide. Question: Did he then name the total number of Jews who were killed? Answer: Yes, he spoke very cynically then. He said that he would jump into his grave with a smile, since he was especially pleased to know that he was responsible for about 5 million people.

Son Eichmann Ricardo, born after World War II, said he holds no grudge against Israel for executing his father. He explained that his father's lack of remorse caused difficult experiences for Eichmann's family, and that he could not accept his father's arguments about "following orders" in order to forgive his actions. Ricardo is now a professor of archeology at the German Archaeological Institute.

Hannah Arendt attended the trial in Jerusalem as a correspondent for The New Yorker magazine. The book she wrote as a result of the trial, “The Banality of Evil: Eichmann in Jerusalem,” examines the personality of the defendant and the circumstances of the crimes he committed. Arendt comes to the conclusion that Eichmann was not an ideologist of the Holocaust, but was a narrow-minded, executive and career-obsessed cog in the totalitarian machine. The book, using the example of Eichmann, proves that in conditions of the “moral collapse of an entire nation,” the perpetrators and participants in mass murder are not only “super-villains,” but also the most ordinary, ordinary people.

“According to Arendt, Eichmann was not at all a monster or some kind of psychopathological person. He was a terribly, incredibly normal person, and his actions, which resulted in the deaths of millions of people, were, according to Arendt, the result of a desire to do his job well. In this case, the fact that the work involved mass murder was of secondary importance.”

The story of Eichmann's kidnapping and trial became so popular around the world that it immediately attracted the attention of playwrights, writers and journalists from all over the world. However, the visualization of this story was successful only in 1968, when actor and screenwriter Robert Shaw released the novel and staged the play “The Man in the Glass Booth” based on it on Broadway. In 1975, based on this novel and play, director Arthur Hiller shot the feature film “The Man in the Glass Booth,” in which the main role was played by Maximilian Schell, who spent several months familiarizing himself with the materials of the Eichmann case and the articles of Hannah Arendt.

Among the complex and controversial issues of collective and individual responsibility for Nazi crimes, the film raises the question of the indirect guilt of the Holocaust victims themselves for what happened and their passivity, and also raises moral and ethical problems of the possibility of “privatization of the Holocaust” by the state of Israel and the implementation of the “Eye for an Eye” policy. .

In prison, Eichmann kept diaries, which, by decision of the Israeli government, were closed for review and use. In 1999, Eichmann's son petitioned the Israeli Supreme Court for permission to publish the diaries. On February 29, 2000, by order of the Israeli government, Eichmann's diaries were published.

Information from them was first publicly disclosed in March 2000 at the trial David Irving against Deborah Lipstadt in a British court as confirmation of the facts of the history of the Holocaust.

During Eichmann's trial, his lawyer was attacked. An unknown person threw acid in the lawyer's face, as a result of which he received chemical burns and was blinded in one eye. There is no information about the investigation of this crime and its disclosure.

Portal Project

After the war he hid from trial in South America. Here, agents of the Israeli intelligence service Mossad tracked him down, kidnapped him and took him to Israel, where he was executed.

Biography

Family, relatives

Father - Adolf Karl Eichmann (d. February 1960) was an accountant at the Electric Tram Company (Solingen), in 1913 he was transferred to the Electric Tram Company in the city of Linz on the Danube (Austria), where he worked until commercial director The family lived in an apartment building in the city center at Bischofstrasse 3. Eichmann's father was a public elder of the evangelical church community in Linz for several decades. He was married twice (the second time in 1916).

Mother - Maria Eichmann, née Schefferling (died 1916).

Brothers - Emil (born 1908); Helmut (born 1909, died in Stalingrad); sister - Irmgard, (born or), younger brother - Otto.

In 1935, Adolf Eichmann married Veronica Liebl, a girl from an old peasant family of staunch Catholics, with whom he became the father of four sons:

Klaus (Nicholas) Eichmann (b. 1936, Berlin)
Horst Adolf "Adolfo" Eichmann (b. 1940, Vienna)
Dieter Hellmut Eichmann (b. 1942, Prague)
Ricardo Francisco Liebl (later Eichmann) (b. 1955, Buenos Aires), now a renowned archaeologist in Germany.

early years

Since childhood, Adolf was a member of the Christian Youth Society, then, due to dissatisfaction with its leadership, he moved to the “Grif” group of the “Young Tourists” society, which was part of the Youth Union. Adolf was a member of this group when he was already 18 years old. For his short stature, dark hair and “characteristic” nose, his friends called him “the little Jew.” Until the 4th grade he attended primary school in Linz (-). Adolf Hitler used to go to this same school. Then Eichmann entered a real school (State Real School named after Kaiser Franz Josef, after the revolution - Federal Real School), where he also studied until the 4th grade (-). At the age of 15, after graduating from college, he entered the state Higher Federal School of Electrical Engineering, Mechanical Engineering and Construction (Linz), where he studied for four semesters.

He was then assigned as an apprentice to the Upper Austrian Electric Company, where he studied electrical engineering for two and a half years.

On January 30, 1938, Eichmann was awarded the rank of SS Untersturmführer (lieutenant).

In April 1939, after the creation of the Protectorate of Bohemia and Moravia, Eichmann was transferred to Prague, where he continued to organize the deportation of Jews.

At the beginning of October 1939, Eichmann was included in the Reich Security Main Office (RSHA), created on September 27, 1939. In December of the same year, Eichmann was appointed head of Sector IV B 4.

Activities during World War II

After the war

In 1945, after the defeat of Germany, Eichmann managed to hide from the Allied intelligence services who were looking for him. He was arrested by the Americans and could not hide his SS membership, but introduced himself as a member of the 22nd SS Volunteer Cavalry Division. Realizing that he could be exposed, he escaped from prison.

Then, using the so-called “rat trail”, with the help of Franciscan monks, he managed to obtain an Argentine passport in the name Ricardo Clementa and in 1950 moved to Argentina. There he took a job as an office worker at the local Mercedes-Benz branch.

Eichmann kidnapping

Subsequently, Eichmann’s son Nicholas said in an interview with Quick magazine: “...On May 12, Dieter, my brother, appeared and said: “The old man has disappeared!” First thought: “Israelis!” Dieter and I rushed through Buenos Aires to San Fernando, along the road They alerted a former SS officer, my father's best friend. For two days we searched in vain for him at the police, in hospitals and morgues. Then it became clear that he had been kidnapped. A group of patriotic German youth volunteered to help us. There were days when up to three hundred people on bicycles combed the city. Another friend of my father, also a former SS man, organized surveillance at the ports and airport. There was not a single pier, highway intersection, or railway station where one of our people was not on duty. The leader of the youth group suggested: “Let’s kidnap the Israeli ambassador and torture him until your father returns home.” Someone suggested blowing up the Israeli embassy. But we rejected these plans..."

Trial

In Jerusalem, Eichmann was handed over to the police. At the Knesset meeting on May 22, Israeli Prime Minister David Ben-Gurion announced that " Adolf Eichmann is in Israel and will soon be brought to justice" The investigation into Eichmann's activities was carried out by a specially created police department - "Establishment 006" consisting of 8 officers with excellent command of the German language. A trial was launched, during which many Holocaust survivor witnesses came forward.

After the investigation was completed, the government's legal adviser, Gideon Hausner, signed a 15-count indictment. Eichmann was accused of crimes against the Jewish people, crimes against humanity, and membership in criminal organizations (SS and SD, Gestapo). Crimes against the Jewish people included all types of persecution, including the arrest of millions of Jews, concentration of them in certain places, sending them to death camps, murder and confiscation of property. The indictment dealt not only with crimes against the Jewish people, but also with crimes against representatives of other nations: the deportation of millions of Poles, the arrest and sending to death camps of tens of thousands of Roma, the sending of 100 children from the Czech village of Lidice to the Lodz ghetto and their extermination in revenge for the murder of Reinhard Heydrich by Czech underground fighters.

The sentence was carried out by the senior warden of the Shalom Nagar prison. After the hanging, Eichmann's body was burned and the ashes were scattered in the Mediterranean Sea outside Israeli territorial waters.

"The Banality of Evil" by Hannah Arendt

Hannah Arendt was present at the trial in Jerusalem as a correspondent for The New Yorker magazine. The book she wrote as a result of the trial, “The Banality of Evil: Eichmann in Jerusalem,” examines the personality of the defendant and the circumstances of the crimes he committed. Arendt comes to the conclusion that Eichmann was not the main ideologist of the Holocaust, but was a narrow-minded, executive and career-obsessed cog in the totalitarian machine. The book, using the example of Eichmann, proves that in conditions of the “moral collapse of an entire nation,” the perpetrators and participants in mass murder are not only “super-villains,” but also the most ordinary, ordinary people.

“According to Arendt, Eichmann was not at all a monster or some kind of psychopathological person. He was a terribly, incredibly normal person, and his actions, which resulted in the deaths of millions of people, were, according to Arendt, the result of a desire to do his job well. In this case, the fact that this work involved organizing mass murder was of secondary importance."

"The Man in the Glass Booth"

Eichmann's Diaries

Information from them was first publicly disclosed in March 2000 at the trial of David Irving against Deborah Lipstadt in a British court as evidence of the history of the Holocaust.

Books

, M., Text, 2007. ISBN 5-7516-0325-7.
Harel I.. - K.: SP Compass, UKK Dannom, 1992. - 221 p. - ISBN 5-712-80004-7, ISBN 978-5-7128-0004-9.
Arendt H. The Banality of Evil: Eichmann in Jerusalem = Eichmann in Jerusalem: A Report on the Banality of Evil / Trans. from English S. E. Kastalsky, N. N. Rudnitskaya. - M.: Europe, 2008. - 444 p. - (Holocaust). - ISBN 5-973-90162-9, ISBN 978-5-9739-0162-2.

In English

Arendt, Hannah (1963) ISBN 0-14-018765-0
David Cesarani Eichmann: His Life and Crimes(2004) ISBN 0-434-01056-1
Harry Mulisch Case 40/61; report on the Eichmann trial(1963) ISBN 0-8122-3861-3
Jochen von Lang, Eichmann Interrogated(1982) ISBN 0-88619-017-7
Moshe Pearlman, The Capture of Adolf Eichmann, 1961. (cited in Hannah Arendt: Eichmann in Jerusalem, Penguin, 1994, p. 235) LCC
Pierre de Villemarest, Untouchable - Who protected Bormann & Gestapo Müller after 1945…, Aquilion, 2005, ISBN 1-904997-02-3 (Gestapo Müller was one of the chiefs of Adolf Eichmann)
Hannah Yablonka (Ora Cummings trans.) (2004). The State of Israel vs. Adolf Eichmann(New York: Schocken Books) ISBN 0-8052-4187-6
Zvi Aharoni, Wilhelm Dietl: Der Jäger - Operation Eichmann, DVA GmbH, 1996, ISBN 3-421-05031-7
Tuviah Friedman Documentation Institute, Israel (English).

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Notes

/ The Nizkor Project
from the book “The Minister of Death” by Quentin Reynolds (1960), this was written about in German newspapers published in April 1961, for example
Ginodman V.(html). gzt.ru (05/05/2005 at 07:25, updated 09/26/2009 at 14:11). Retrieved February 21, 2010. .
. NEWSru.com. Retrieved December 31, 2008. .
Julian Borger.(English) . Guardian (8 June 2006). Retrieved December 31, 2008. .
Oleg Sulkin.. Results No. 11(457) (March 14, 2005). Retrieved December 31, 2008. .
Oleg Sulkin.. MIGNews (March 5, 2005). Retrieved December 31, 2008. .
Yuri Pevzner, Yuri Cherner.. - M.: Terra, 2001. - 427 p. - (Secret missions). - ISBN 5-275-00303-X.
. BBC Russian Service (March 5, 2005). Retrieved December 31, 2008. .
- article from
The first case was the shooting by mistake of Captain Meir of Tuvian on June 30, 1948
Eichmann in Jerusalem: A Report on the Banality of Evil(1963). (Rev. ed. New York: Viking, 1968).

Links

- article from the Electronic Jewish Encyclopedia
Harel Iser, SP Compass, UKK Dannom, 1992



Genocides

Types

Methods

Denial of genocide

Problems

Famous figures

Excerpt characterizing Eichmann, Adolf

- Parole d"honneur, sans parler de ce que je vous dois, j"ai de l"amitie pour vous. Puis je faire quelque chose pour vous? Disposez de moi. C"est a la vie et a la mort. C"est la main sur le c?ur que je vous le dis, [Honestly, not to mention what I owe you, I feel friendship for you. Can I do something for you? Use me. This is for life and death. I tell you this, putting my hand on my heart,” he said, hitting himself on the chest.
“Merci,” said Pierre. The captain looked intently at Pierre the same way he looked when he learned what the shelter was called in German, and his face suddenly lit up.
- Ah! dans ce cas je bois a notre amitie! [Ah, in that case, I drink to your friendship!] - he shouted cheerfully, pouring two glasses of wine. Pierre took the glass he had poured and drank it. Rambal drank his, shook Pierre's hand again and leaned his elbows on the table in a thoughtfully melancholy pose.
“Oui, mon cher ami, voila les caprices de la fortune,” he began. – Qui m"aurait dit que je serai soldat et capitaine de dragons au service de Bonaparte, comme nous l"appellions jadis. Et cependant me voila a Moscou avec lui. “Il faut vous dire, mon cher,” he continued in the sad, measured voice of a man who is about to tell a long story, “que notre nom est l"un des plus anciens de la France. [Yes, my friend, here is the wheel of fortune. Who said I wish I would be a soldier and captain of dragoons in the service of Bonaparte, as we used to call him. However, here I am in Moscow with him. I must tell you, my dear... that our name is one of the most ancient in France.]
And with the easy and naive frankness of a Frenchman, the captain told Pierre the history of his ancestors, his childhood, adolescence and manhood, all his family, property, and family relationships. “Ma pauvre mere [“My poor mother.”] played, of course, an important role in this story.
– Mais tout ca ce n"est que la mise en scene de la vie, le fond c"est l"amour? L"amour! “N"est ce pas, monsieur; Pierre?” he said, perking up. “Encore un verre.” [But all this is only an introduction to life, its essence is love. Love! Isn’t it so, Monsieur Pierre? Another glass. ]
Pierre drank again and poured himself a third.
- Oh! Les femmes, les femmes! [ABOUT! women, women!] - and the captain, looking at Pierre with oily eyes, began to talk about love and his love affairs. There were a lot of them, which was easy to believe, looking at the smug, handsome face of the officer and at the enthusiastic animation with which he spoke about women. Despite the fact that all of Rambal's love stories had that dirty character in which the French see the exceptional charm and poetry of love, the captain told his stories with such sincere conviction that he alone experienced and knew all the delights of love, and described women so temptingly that Pierre listened to him with curiosity.
It was obvious that l "amour, which the Frenchman loved so much, was neither that lower and simple kind of love that Pierre once felt for his wife, nor that romantic love, inflated by himself, that he felt for Natasha (both types of this love Rambal equally despised - one was l"amour des charretiers, the other l"amour des nigauds) [the love of cabbies, the other - the love of fools.]; l"amour, which the Frenchman worshiped, consisted mainly in the unnaturalness of relationships with women and in a combination of ugliness that gave the main charm to the feeling.
So the captain told the touching story of his love for one charming thirty-five-year-old marquise and at the same time for a charming innocent seventeen-year-old child, the daughter of the charming marquise. The struggle of generosity between mother and daughter, which ended with the mother, sacrificing herself, offering her daughter as a wife to her lover, even now, although a long-past memory, worried the captain. Then he told one episode in which the husband played the role of a lover, and he (the lover) played the role of a husband, and several comic episodes from souvenirs d'Allemagne, where asile means Unterkunft, where les maris mangent de la choux croute and where les jeunes filles sont trop blondes. [memories of Germany, where husbands eat cabbage soup and where young girls are too blond.]
Finally, the last episode in Poland, still fresh in the captain’s memory, which he recounted with quick gestures and a flushed face, was that he saved the life of one Pole (in general, in the captain’s stories, the episode of saving a life occurred incessantly) and this Pole entrusted him with his charming wife (Parisienne de c?ur [Parisian at heart]), while he himself entered the French service. The captain was happy, the charming Polish woman wanted to run away with him; but, moved by generosity, the captain returned his wife to the husband, saying to him: “Je vous ai sauve la vie et je sauve votre honneur!” [I saved your life and save your honor!] Having repeated these words, the captain rubbed his eyes and shook himself, as if driving away the weakness that had seized him at this touching memory.
Listening to the captain's stories, as often happens in the late evening and under the influence of wine, Pierre followed everything that the captain said, understood everything and at the same time followed a number of personal memories that suddenly appeared to his imagination for some reason. When he listened to these stories of love, his own love for Natasha suddenly suddenly came to his mind, and, turning over the pictures of this love in his imagination, he mentally compared them with the stories of Rambal. Following the story of the struggle between duty and love, Pierre saw before him all the smallest details of his last meeting with the object of his love at the Sukharev Tower. Then this meeting had no influence on him; he never even thought about her. But now it seemed to him that this meeting had something very significant and poetic.
“Peter Kirilych, come here, I found out,” he now heard these words spoken, saw before him her eyes, her smile, her travel cap, a stray strand of hair... and something touching, touching seemed to him in all this.
Having finished his story about the charming Polish woman, the captain turned to Pierre with the question of whether he had experienced a similar feeling of self-sacrifice for love and envy of his lawful husband.
Provoked by this question, Pierre raised his head and felt the need to express the thoughts that were occupying him; he began to explain how he understood love for a woman a little differently. He said that in all his life he had loved and loves only one woman and that this woman could never belong to him.
- Tiens! [Look!] - said the captain.
Then Pierre explained that he had loved this woman from a very young age; but he did not dare to think about her, because she was too young, and he was an illegitimate son without a name. Then, when he received name and wealth, he did not dare to think about her, because he loved her too much, placed her too high above the whole world and therefore, especially above himself. Having reached this point in his story, Pierre turned to the captain with a question: does he understand this?
The captain made a gesture expressing that if he did not understand, he still asked to continue.
“L"amour platonique, les nuages... [Platonic love, clouds...],” he muttered. Was it the wine he drank, or the need for frankness, or the thought that this person does not know and will not recognize any of the characters in his story, or all together unleashed tongue to Pierre. And with a murmuring mouth and oily eyes, looking somewhere into the distance, he told his whole story: his marriage, and the story of Natasha’s love for his best friend, and her betrayal, and all his simple relationship with her, evoked by Rambal’s questions. he also told him what he had hidden at first - his position in the world and even revealed his name to him.
What struck the captain most from Pierre’s story was that Pierre was very rich, that he had two palaces in Moscow, and that he gave up everything and did not leave Moscow, but remained in the city, hiding his name and rank.
It was late at night and they went out together. The night was warm and bright. To the left of the house the glow of the first fire that started in Moscow, on Petrovka, brightened. To the right stood high the young crescent of the month, and on the opposite side of the month hung that bright comet that was associated in Pierre’s soul with his love. At the gate stood Gerasim, the cook and two Frenchmen. Their laughter and conversation in a language incomprehensible to each other could be heard. They looked at the glow visible in the city.
There was nothing terrible about a small, distant fire in a huge city.
Looking at the high starry sky, the month, the comet and the glow, Pierre experienced joyful emotion. “Well, that’s how good it is. Well, what else do you need?!” - he thought. And suddenly, when he remembered his intention, his head began to spin, he felt sick, so he leaned against the fence so as not to fall.
Without saying goodbye to his new friend, Pierre walked away from the gate with unsteady steps and, returning to his room, lay down on the sofa and immediately fell asleep.

The glow of the first fire that started on September 2nd was watched from different roads by fleeing residents and retreating troops with different feelings.
That night the Rostovs' train stood in Mytishchi, twenty miles from Moscow. On September 1, they left so late, the road was so cluttered with carts and troops, so many things had been forgotten, for which people had been sent, that that night it was decided to spend the night five miles outside Moscow. The next morning we set off late, and again there were so many stops that we only got to Bolshie Mytishchi. At ten o'clock the gentlemen of the Rostovs and the wounded who were traveling with them all settled in the courtyards and huts of the large village. The people, the Rostovs' coachmen and the orderlies of the wounded, having removed the gentlemen, had dinner, fed the horses and went out onto the porch.
In the next hut lay Raevsky’s wounded adjutant, with a broken hand, and the terrible pain he felt made him moan pitifully, without ceasing, and these groans sounded terribly in the autumn darkness of the night. On the first night, this adjutant spent the night in the same courtyard in which the Rostovs stood. The Countess said that she could not close her eyes from this groan, and in Mytishchi she moved to a worse hut just to be away from this wounded man.
One of the people in the darkness of the night, from behind the high body of a carriage standing at the entrance, noticed another small glow of a fire. One glow had been visible for a long time, and everyone knew that it was Malye Mytishchi that was burning, lit by Mamonov’s Cossacks.
“But this, brothers, is a different fire,” said the orderly.
Everyone turned their attention to the glow.
- Why, they said that Mamonov’s Cossacks set Mamonov’s Cossacks on fire.
- They! No, this is not Mytishchi, this is further away.
- Look, it’s definitely in Moscow.
Two of the people got off the porch, went behind the carriage and sat down on the step.
- This is left! Of course, Mytishchi is over there, and this is in a completely different direction.
Several people joined the first.
“Look, it’s burning,” said one, “this, gentlemen, is a fire in Moscow: either in Sushchevskaya or in Rogozhskaya.”
No one responded to this remark. And for quite a long time all these people silently looked at the distant flames of a new fire that were flaring up.
The old man, the count's valet (as he was called), Danilo Terentich, approached the crowd and shouted to Mishka.
- What haven’t you seen, slut... The Count will ask, but no one is there; go get your dress.
“Yes, I was just running for water,” said Mishka.
– What do you think, Danilo Terentich, it’s like there’s a glow in Moscow? - said one of the footmen.
Danilo Terentich did not answer anything, and for a long time everyone was silent again. The glow spread and swayed further and further.
“God have mercy!.. wind and dryness...” the voice said again.
- Look how it went. Oh my God! You can already see the jackdaws. Lord, have mercy on us sinners!
- They'll probably put it out.
-Who should put it out? – the voice of Danila Terentich, who had been silent until now, was heard. His voice was calm and slow. “Moscow is, brothers,” he said, “she is mother squirrel...” His voice broke off, and he suddenly sobbed like an old man. And it was as if everyone was waiting for just this in order to understand the meaning that this visible glow had for them. Sighs, words of prayer and the sobbing of the old count's valet were heard.

The valet, returning, reported to the count that Moscow was burning. The Count put on his dressing gown and went out to have a look. Sonya, who had not yet undressed, and Madame Schoss came out with him. Natasha and the Countess remained alone in the room. (Petya was no longer with his family; he went forward with his regiment, marching to Trinity.)
The Countess began to cry when she heard the news of the fire in Moscow. Natasha, pale, with fixed eyes, sitting under the icons on the bench (in the very place where she sat down when she arrived), did not pay any attention to her father’s words. She listened to the incessant moaning of the adjutant, heard three houses away.
- Oh, what a horror! - said Sonya, cold and frightened, returned from the yard. - I think all of Moscow will burn, a terrible glow! Natasha, look now, you can see from the window from here,” she said to her sister, apparently wanting to entertain her with something. But Natasha looked at her, as if not understanding what they were asking her, and again stared at the corner of the stove. Natasha had been in this state of tetanus since this morning, ever since Sonya, to the surprise and annoyance of the Countess, for some unknown reason, found it necessary to announce to Natasha about Prince Andrei’s wound and his presence with them on the train. The Countess became angry with Sonya, as she rarely became angry. Sonya cried and asked for forgiveness and now, as if trying to make amends for her guilt, she never stopped caring for her sister.
“Look, Natasha, how terribly it burns,” said Sonya.
– What’s burning? – Natasha asked. - Oh, yes, Moscow.
And as if in order not to offend Sonya by refusing and to get rid of her, she moved her head to the window, looked so that, obviously, she could not see anything, and again sat down in her previous position.
-Have you not seen it?
“No, really, I saw it,” she said in a voice pleading for calm.
Both the Countess and Sonya understood that Moscow, the fire of Moscow, whatever it was, of course, could not matter to Natasha.
The Count again went behind the partition and lay down. The Countess approached Natasha, touched her head with her inverted hand, as she did when her daughter was sick, then touched her forehead with her lips, as if to find out if there was a fever, and kissed her.
-You're cold. You're shaking all over. You should go to bed,” she said.
- Go to bed? Yes, okay, I'll go to bed. “I’ll go to bed now,” Natasha said.
Since Natasha was told this morning that Prince Andrei was seriously wounded and was going with them, only in the first minute she asked a lot about where? How? Is he dangerously injured? and is she allowed to see him? But after she was told that she could not see him, that he was seriously wounded, but that his life was not in danger, she, obviously, did not believe what she was told, but was convinced that no matter how much she said, she would be answer the same thing, stopped asking and talking. All the way, with big eyes, which the countess knew so well and whose expression the countess was so afraid of, Natasha sat motionless in the corner of the carriage and now sat in the same way on the bench on which she sat down. She was thinking about something, something she was deciding or had already decided in her mind now - the countess knew this, but what it was, she did not know, and this frightened and tormented her.
- Natasha, undress, my dear, lie down on my bed. (Only the countess alone had a bed made on the bed; m me Schoss and both young ladies had to sleep on the floor on the hay.)
“No, mom, I’ll lie here on the floor,” Natasha said angrily, went to the window and opened it. The adjutant’s groan from the open window was heard more clearly. She stuck her head out into the damp air of the night, and the countess saw how her thin shoulders were shaking with sobs and beating against the frame. Natasha knew that it was not Prince Andrei who was moaning. She knew that Prince Andrei was lying in the same connection where they were, in another hut across the hallway; but this terrible incessant groan made her sob. The Countess exchanged glances with Sonya.
“Lie down, my dear, lie down, my friend,” said the countess, lightly touching Natasha’s shoulder with her hand. - Well, go to bed.
“Oh, yes... I’ll go to bed now,” said Natasha, hastily undressing and tearing off the strings of her skirts. Having taken off her dress and put on a jacket, she tucked her legs in, sat down on the bed prepared on the floor and, throwing her short thin braid over her shoulder, began to braid it. Thin, long, familiar fingers quickly, deftly took apart, braided, and tied the braid. Natasha's head turned with a habitual gesture, first in one direction, then in the other, but her eyes, feverishly open, looked straight and motionless. When the night suit was finished, Natasha quietly sank down onto the sheet laid on the hay on the edge of the door.
“Natasha, lie down in the middle,” said Sonya.
“No, I’m here,” Natasha said. “Go to bed,” she added with annoyance. And she buried her face in the pillow.
The Countess, m me Schoss and Sonya hastily undressed and lay down. One lamp remained in the room. But in the courtyard it was getting brighter from the fire of Malye Mytishchi, two miles away, and the drunken cries of the people were buzzing in the tavern, which Mamon’s Cossacks had smashed, on the crossroads, in the street, and the incessant groan of the adjutant could still be heard.
Natasha listened for a long time to the internal and external sounds coming to her, and did not move. She heard first the prayer and sighs of her mother, the cracking of her bed under her, the familiar whistling snoring of m me Schoss, the quiet breathing of Sonya. Then the Countess called out to Natasha. Natasha did not answer her.
“He seems to be sleeping, mom,” Sonya answered quietly. The Countess, after being silent for a while, called out again, but no one answered her.
Soon after this, Natasha heard her mother's even breathing. Natasha did not move, despite the fact that her small bare foot, having escaped from under the blanket, was chilly on the bare floor.
As if celebrating victory over everyone, a cricket screamed in the crack. The rooster crowed far away, and loved ones responded. The screams died down in the tavern, only the same adjutant’s stand could be heard. Natasha stood up.
- Sonya? are you sleeping? Mother? – she whispered. No one answered. Natasha slowly and carefully stood up, crossed herself and stepped carefully with her narrow and flexible bare foot onto the dirty, cold floor. The floorboard creaked. She, quickly moving her feet, ran a few steps like a kitten and grabbed the cold door bracket.
It seemed to her that something heavy, striking evenly, was knocking on all the walls of the hut: it was her heart, frozen with fear, with horror and love, beating, bursting.
She opened the door, crossed the threshold and stepped onto the damp, cold ground of the hallway. The gripping cold refreshed her. She felt the sleeping man with her bare foot, stepped over him and opened the door to the hut where Prince Andrei lay. It was dark in this hut. In the back corner of the bed, on which something was lying, there was a tallow candle on a bench that had burned out like a large mushroom.
Natasha, in the morning, when they told her about the wound and the presence of Prince Andrei, decided that she should see him. She did not know what it was for, but she knew that the meeting would be painful, and she was even more convinced that it was necessary.
All day she lived only in the hope that at night she would see him. But now, when this moment came, the horror of what she would see came over her. How was he mutilated? What was left of him? Was he like that incessant groan of the adjutant? Yes, he was like that. He was in her imagination the personification of this terrible groan. When she saw an obscure mass in the corner and mistook his raised knees under the blanket for his shoulders, she imagined some kind of terrible body and stopped in horror. But an irresistible force pulled her forward. She carefully took one step, then another, and found herself in the middle of a small, cluttered hut. In the hut, under the icons, another person was lying on the benches (it was Timokhin), and two more people were lying on the floor (these were the doctor and the valet).
The valet stood up and whispered something. Timokhin, suffering from pain in his wounded leg, did not sleep and looked with all his eyes at the strange appearance of a girl in a poor shirt, jacket and eternal cap. The sleepy and frightened words of the valet; “What do you need, why?” - they only forced Natasha to quickly approach what was lying in the corner. No matter how scary or unlike a human this body was, she had to see it. She passed the valet: the burnt mushroom of the candle fell off, and she clearly saw Prince Andrei lying with his arms outstretched on the blanket, just as she had always seen him.
He was the same as always; but the inflamed color of his face, his sparkling eyes, fixed enthusiastically on her, and especially the tender child’s neck protruding from the folded collar of his shirt, gave him a special, innocent, childish appearance, which, however, she had never seen in Prince Andrei. She walked up to him and with a quick, flexible, youthful movement knelt down.
He smiled and extended his hand to her.

For Prince Andrei, seven days have passed since he woke up at the dressing station of the Borodino field. All this time he was in almost constant unconsciousness. The fever and inflammation of the intestines, which were damaged, in the opinion of the doctor traveling with the wounded man, should have carried him away. But on the seventh day he happily ate a slice of bread with tea, and the doctor noticed that the general fever had decreased. Prince Andrei regained consciousness in the morning. The first night after leaving Moscow it was quite warm, and Prince Andrei was left to spend the night in a carriage; but in Mytishchi the wounded man himself demanded to be carried out and to be given tea. The pain caused to him by being carried into the hut made Prince Andrei moan loudly and lose consciousness again. When they laid him on a camp bed, he lay for a long time with his eyes closed without moving. Then he opened them and quietly whispered: “What should I have for tea?” This memory for the small details of life amazed the doctor. He felt the pulse and, to his surprise and displeasure, noticed that the pulse was better. To his displeasure, the doctor noticed this because, from his experience, he was convinced that Prince Andrei could not live and that if he did not die now, he would only die with great suffering some time later. With Prince Andrei they were carrying the major of his regiment, Timokhin, who had joined them in Moscow with a red nose and was wounded in the leg in the same Battle of Borodino. With them rode a doctor, the prince's valet, his coachman and two orderlies.
Prince Andrey was given tea. He drank greedily, looking ahead at the door with feverish eyes, as if trying to understand and remember something.
- I don’t want anymore. Is Timokhin here? - he asked. Timokhin crawled towards him along the bench.
- I'm here, your Excellency.
- How's the wound?
- Mine then? Nothing. Is that you? “Prince Andrei began to think again, as if remembering something.
-Can I get a book? - he said.
- Which book?
- Gospel! I have no.
The doctor promised to get it and began asking the prince about how he felt. Prince Andrei reluctantly, but wisely answered all the doctor’s questions and then said that he needed to put a cushion on him, otherwise it would be awkward and very painful. The doctor and the valet lifted the greatcoat with which he was covered and, wincing at the heavy smell of rotten meat spreading from the wound, began to examine this terrible place. The doctor was very dissatisfied with something, changed something differently, turned the wounded man over so that he groaned again and, from the pain while turning, again lost consciousness and began to rave. He kept talking about getting this book for him as soon as possible and putting it there.
- And what does it cost you! - he said. “I don’t have it, please take it out and put it in for a minute,” he said in a pitiful voice.
The doctor went out into the hallway to wash his hands.
“Ah, shameless, really,” the doctor said to the valet, who was pouring water on his hands. “I just didn’t watch it for a minute.” After all, you put it directly on the wound. It’s such a pain that I’m surprised how he endures it.
“It seems we set it up, Lord Jesus Christ,” said the valet.
For the first time, Prince Andrei understood where he was and what had happened to him, and remembered that he had been wounded and how at that moment when the carriage stopped in Mytishchi, he asked to go to the hut. Confused again from pain, he came to his senses another time in the hut, when he was drinking tea, and then again, repeating in his memory everything that had happened to him, he most vividly imagined that moment at the dressing station when, at the sight of the suffering of a person he did not love, , these new thoughts came to him, promising him happiness. And these thoughts, although unclear and indefinite, now again took possession of his soul. He remembered that he now had new happiness and that this happiness had something in common with the Gospel. That's why he asked for the Gospel. But the bad position that his wound had given him, the new upheaval, again confused his thoughts, and for the third time he woke up to life in the complete silence of the night. Everyone was sleeping around him. A cricket screamed through the entryway, someone was shouting and singing on the street, cockroaches rustled on the table and icons, in the autumn a thick fly beat on his headboard and near the tallow candle, which had burned like a large mushroom and stood next to him.
His soul was not in a normal state. A healthy person usually thinks, feels and remembers simultaneously about a countless number of objects, but he has the power and strength, having chosen one series of thoughts or phenomena, to focus all his attention on this series of phenomena. A healthy person, in a moment of deepest thought, breaks away to say a polite word to the person who has entered, and again returns to his thoughts. The soul of Prince Andrei was not in a normal state in this regard. All the forces of his soul were more active, clearer than ever, but they acted outside of his will. The most diverse thoughts and ideas simultaneously possessed him. Sometimes his thought suddenly began to work, and with such strength, clarity and depth with which it had never been able to act in a healthy state; but suddenly, in the middle of her work, she broke off, was replaced by some unexpected idea, and there was no strength to return to it.