Adolf Eichmann

Obeying an order was the most important thing to me. It could be that is in the nature of the German.

1999

From my childhood, obedience was something I could not get out of my system. When I entered the armed services at the age of 27, I found being obedient not a bit more difficult than it had been during my life to that point. It was unthinkable that I would not follow orders.

1999

Now that I look back, I realize that a life predicated on being obedient and taking orders is a very comfortable life indeed. Living in such a way reduces to a minimum one's own need to think.

1999

I am certain, however, that those responsible for the murder of millions of Germans will never be brought to justice.

1999

Adolf Hitler may have been wrong all down the line, but one thing is beyond dispute: the man was able to work his way up from lance corporal in the German Army to Führer of a people of almost 80 million. … His success alone proved that I should subordinate myself to this man.

As quoted in "The Eichmann Memoir" in The Personalist Volume XLII (1962)., 1962

To sum it all up, I must say that I regret nothing.

While awaiting trial in Israel, as quoted in LIFE magazine (5 December 1960)., 1960

Over the years I learned which hooks to use to catch which fish.

Audiotape recording of Eichmann in Argentina (1957), as quoted in Eichmann Before Jerusalem: The Unexamined Life of a Mass Murderer by Bettina Stangneth (2015). ., 1957

While we were working with the Jews to solve the Jewish question, the others used the Jews as a means to an end, to milk them for their own ends.... And this is why there are still a whole lot of Jews enjoying life today who ought to have been gassed.

1957

The men in my command had the kind of respect for me that prompted the Jews to effectively set me on a throne.

1957

They knew me wherever I went. Through the press, the name Eichmann had emerged as a symbol.... In any case, the word Jew ... was irreversibly linked with the word Eichmann. Much more power ... was attributed to me than I actually had.

1957

On the Lüneberg Heath, it was near where Bergen-Belsen had been, and everything round there smelled of garlic and it was all Jews, because who was buying anything at that time? Only the Jews, and then I said to myself, I, I who was bargaining with Jews over wood and eggs, I was amazed and astounded, and I thought you see - goddammit! They all should have been killed, and there those fellas are, doing deals with me, you know?

1957

These Jew-treks, as I called them, were carried out in the most elegant way.... I can tell you today that I saw two bodies on the whole route, they were old Jews - it's clear, you can't make an omelette without breaking eggs. And were no eggs broken when much larger contingents of Germans marched from the East after 1945?

1957

As my chief, Gruppenführer Müller expressed it, they were sending in the master himself, so I wanted to behave like a master.

1957

I have to forge my weapons according to the strength of the resistance.

1957

It was actually an achievement that was never matched before or since.

About the deportation of more than 400,000 Jews from Hungary in several weeks as quoted in Eichmann Before Jerusalem by Bettina Stangneth (1815)., 1815