Photo Gallery The Eichmann Threat
It was the trial of the century. Adolf Eichmann, the organizer of the Nazi Holocaust, answered for his crimes before an Israeli court. But far from being elated that a major war criminal had been captured, West Germany was afraid that Eichmann might incriminate senior government officials.
The government of Chancellor Konrad Adenauer did everything it could to ensure that the Eichmann trial would not turn into a trial against West Germany. Bonn was particularly concerned about Adenauer's chief of staff, Hans Globke, who had written a legal annotation of the anti-Semitic Nuremberg Race Laws in the 1930s. Here, Eichmann in the prison yard in Israel in 1961.
Israeli Prime Minister David Ben-Gurion with German Chancellor Konrad Adenauer in New York in 1960. West Germany sought to exert as much influence on the Eichmann trial as it could.
The BND, Germany's Federal Intelligence Service, sent an agent to observe the trial. The Eichmann file is 3,000 pages long -- much of which SPIEGEL has seen.
German Defense Minister Franz Josef Strauss made it clear to the Israelis that they would have to ensure the Eichmann trial did no damage to West Germany's reputation if it wanted German help with arms shipments.
Eichmann in the courtroom. In the end, Eichmann proved reluctant to incriminate others who were involved in the Holocaust, to West Germany's great relief.
