Adolf Eichmann in Jerusalem, the "Territorial Solution", and the Soft Version of the "Final Solution”

• In Event: Alternative “Solutions” to the Nazi “Jewish Question”? Revisiting Adolf Eichmann’s Judenfrage in the Context of Antisemitism, Colonialism, and Postwar Jurisprudence, 1933-1962

Abstract

At his 1961 trial in Jerusalem, Eichmann was presented by the prosecution as the "architect of the Final Solution of the Jewish Question". For the accused, however, the preliminary investigation and 121 sessions constituted a triple historical opportunity: to propose a critical response to the 15 charges against him; to devise a holistic narrative that enabled the former SS officer to propose an alternative history of the Holocaust, including the different stages, actors and spaces from 1933 to 1945; to develop a soft interpretation of anti-Jewish policy that made the genocidal "Sonderbehandlung" a negative - and avoidable - modality of the "Final Solution". In Israel, Eichmann championed a "territorial solution" to the Jewish question, as evidenced by his contacts in Palestine (1937) as well as his plans for Nisko and Madagascar. While Israeli Prime Minister Ben Gurion wanted to make Jerusalem the "Nuremberg of the Jewish people", Adolf Eichmann, on the contrary, intended to make it the moment to revise the "legends" which, after 15 years of proceedings and statements by other Nazis, had built his name into a screen persona. The notes produced during the sessions reveal the defendant's defense strategies.

The aim of this paper is, first, to show how language remained the last weapon that Eichmann, still at war with "the Jew", could wield after his military defeat. His public statements will then be understood as part of “winning” his war against Jewry. Secondly, we will examine how Eichmann learned to elaborate a language for the post-Nazi world, the origins of which went back to his talks with Willem Sassen in Argentina in 1957. Finally, the paper will look at how Eichmann led a revisionist political project that involved disseminating knowledge about the "Final Solution" for future generations, which presupposes (critical) consideration of his statements.

Author

• Fabien THEOFILAKIS, University Paris 1 Panthéon Sorbonne