Judgment Day

From the moment that Israeli agents in Argentina flashed home the coded message 19 months ago, "The beast is in chains," there has been no doubt over the verdict in the case of Adolf Eichmann. Last week, as a chill rain fell on the deserted streets outside Jerusalem's Beit Haam (House of the People), the three Israeli judges returned to the courtroom in which, for four months, they heard 1,350,000 words of testimony. The crowd expected to hear first a detailed, legalistic defense of Israel's right to try Eichmann. Instead, Presiding Judge Moshe Landau (like his two colleagues a refugee from Nazi Germany) ordered Eichmann to attention in his glass, bulletproof cage, and bluntly told the accused: "The court finds you guilty."

Block of Ice. For the next 17 hours, taking turns reading their 100,000-word opinion, which has been four months in the writing, the judges explained why. Eichmann was found guilty on all 15 counts (crimes against humanity, crimes against the Jewish people, war crimes, and membership in Nazi organizations) because, far from being "a puppet in the hands of others, he was among those who pulled the strings . . . This block of ice . . . this block of marble . . . closed his ears to the voice of his conscience, as was demanded of him by the regime to which he was wholeheartedly devoted, and to which he had sold himself body and soul. Thus he sank from one depth to another, until, in the implementation of the 'final solution,' he reached the nether hell."

The former Gestapo colonel's excuse that he had only rounded up Jews for deportation to death camps, and had not killed any himself, was rejected by the court. "The legal and moral responsibility of him who delivers the victim to his death," said the judges, "is, in our opinion, no smaller, and may even be greater than the liability of him who does the victim to death." Similarly, the judgment dismissed as "of no avail" Eichmann's plea that he had only acted on orders from his government. This could not exempt "from their personal criminal responsibility those who gave, and those who carried out the order."

Melting Nerves. Citing legal authorities in six languages, ranging in time from Hugo Grotius in 1625 to the United Nations genocide convention in 1948, the court sought to establish Israel's jurisdiction over Eichmann; although the Israeli state did not exist when the crimes were committed, the judges argued that Israel now represents all Jews. "The people is one and the crime is one," they said. "To argue that there is no connection is like cutting away a tree root and branch and saying to its trunk: I have not hurt you."

At one point, Eichmann's nerves melted. His face twitched; his tongue flicked his lips and his complexion became sickly pale. But his voice was firm when he made his final statement. "I am not the monster I am made out to be," he said. "This mass slaughter is solely the responsibility of political leaders. My guilt lies in my obedience, my respect for discipline, my allegiance to the colors and the service." He would ask the Jews for pardon, said Eichmann, except that, in view of the verdict, "this would be construed as hypocrisy . . . I must carry the burden imposed on me by fate."

His fate, as decreed by the court: death by hanging. Appeals to the Israeli Supreme Court and to President Izhak Ben-Zvi will postpone the almost certain execution for several months. Until then, Eichmann will be held in a special cell on the top floor of the British-built Teggart Fortress in Ramleh. Meanwhile, a British reporter had sought out Mrs. Veronika Eichmann, now living in seclusion in Germany. Affirming her husband's innocence, Mrs. Eichmann was "absolutely sure" he would return home. Then, almost as an afterthought, she added: "We never discussed his work."

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