Hunting Eichmann

By early May 1945, Hitler's Germany was defeated and its cities in ruins. The Fuhrer, his empire squeezed out of existence by the advancing Allied armies, was dead by his own hand, as were his lieutenants, Himmler and Goebbels. In the first weeks of the Allied occupation, other leading Nazis - including Goering, Ribbentrop and Speer - fell, one by one, into Allied custody.

But one man, his hands as steeped in blood as any, would evade the judgment that awaited his colleagues at Nuremburg. He was SS Obersturmbannfuhrer Adolf Eichmann, Chief of Department IVB4 of the Reich Main Security Office, and operational manager of the genocide that despatched 5 million European Jews to the gas chambers. Escaping US custody in 1946, he hid in various locations in Germany before absconding in 1950 via a 'ratline' escape route to Argentina, where he lived, undisturbed, for the next decade.

On 11 May 1960 he was captured by a team of Mossad agents in a Buenos Aires suburb. Smuggled out of Argentina to Israel, Eichmann was indicted there on charges of crimes against humanity, and hanged on 1 June 1962. Part history, part detective story, part international thriller, Hunting Eichmann brings the story of the 15-year search for Eichmann more thrillingly, more completely to life than ever before.

Archival research on three continents and interviews both with survivors of the Mossad operation and with those who knew Eichmann in Argentina, have enabled the author not only to reveal details of the abduction that have never before been published, but also to uncover new information on how Eichmann was able to remain free for so long. In addition, his researches reveal the full extent of US negligence in hunting down war criminals and its protection of high-level German officials.

About The Author

Neal Bascomb is the author of Higher (the story of the building of New York) and The Perfect Mile. His most recent book, Red Mutiny : The True Story of the Battleship Potemkin Mutiny, received outstanding reviews on its publication in 2007.