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Summary
Summary
New York Times best-selling author Neal Bascomb's Hunting Eichmann is the first complete narrative of the pursuit and capture of SS Nazi officer and Holocaust architect Adolf Eichmann. "A fantastic true spy story."-- Associated Press When the Allies stormed Berlin in the last days of the Third Reich, Adolf Eichmann shed his SS uniform and vanished. Following his escape from two American POW camps, his retreat into the mountains and out of Europe, and his path to an anonymous life in Buenos Aires, his pursuers are a bulldog West German prosecutor, a blind Argentinean Jew and his beautiful daughter, and a budding, ragtag spy agency called the Mossad, whose operatives have their own scores to settle (and whose rare surveillance photographs are published here for the first time). The capture of Eichmann and the efforts by Israeli agents to secret him out of Argentina to stand trial is the stunning conclusion to this thrilling historical account, told with the kind of pulse-pounding detail that rivals anything you'd find in great spy fiction. Includes Mossad's Rare Surveillance Photographs
Author Notes
Neal Bascomb was born in Denver, Colorado in 1971.
Neal graduated from Miami University (Ohio) with dual degrees in Economics and English Literature.
Neal's first book was Higher (Doubleday) which was chosen for a Barnes and Noble Discover Great New Writers Award. His other works include Perfect Mile (Houghton Mifflin), Red Mutiny (Houghton Mifflin), and Hunting Eichmann (Houghton Mifflin).
In 2014 his title, The Nazi Hunters: How a Team of Spies and Survivors Captured the World's Most Notorious Nazi, made The New York Times Best Seller List.
(Bowker Author Biography)
Reviews (4)
Publisher's Weekly Review
After WWII, notorious Nazi war criminal Adolf Eichmann lived comfortably in Buenos Aires under an alias. Nazi hunters like Simon Wiesenthal sought Eichmann fruitlessly until 1956, when Eichmann's son bragged about his father's war exploits to his girlfriend's father, a half-Jew who had been blinded by the Gestapo and who alerted a Jewish attorney general of Hesse in Germany known for his prosecution of Nazis. Bascomb (The Perfect Mile) details Eichmann's wartime atrocities and postwar escapes, and how, in 1960, the Israelis decided to have secret service operatives (one of whom, Isser Harel, recounted these events in 1975's The House on Garibaldi Street)-mostly Holocaust survivors-secretly kidnap Eichmann and fly him to Israel on El Al, disguised as an airline employee. Tried in Israel in 1961, Eichmann was executed in 1962. These were early days for Israel's now-legendary intelligence agencies, Mossad and Shin Bet, and it's fascinating how they accomplished their goal without the technical and monetary support that's now standard. Although Bascomb's prose is awkward, his work is well researched, including interviews with former Israeli operatives and El Al staff who participated in the capture, as well as Argentine fascists. This is a gripping read. Illus. (Mar.) (c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved
Booklist Review
The pursuit, capture, and abduction of Nazi war criminal Adolf Eichmann has been chronicled before, but it is a thrilling story that deserves retelling, particularly since recently uncovered information enhances the drama. Bascomb spread a wide net in researching the 15-year hunt, and he fills his book with previously unknown or neglected details, utilizing the remembrances of former Mossad agents, German and American intelligence operatives, and Argentine Nazi sympathizers who tried to find Eichmann after his seizure. Bascomb includes loads of juicy tidbits, such as squabbling within the Israeli government over planning the capture; the indifference of CIA agents, who apparently knew of Eichmann's location; and details on how he managed his escape from Europe. The reactions of his captors as they held him in a Buenos Aires safe house are particularly interesting, as their emotions range from elation to curiosity to cold contempt for the seemingly banal, fearful man who perpetrated monstrous deeds. This is an outstanding account of a sustained and worthy manhunt.--Freeman, Jay Copyright 2009 Booklist
Kirkus Review
Step-by-step account of the 15-year pursuit of the Holocaust's leading bureaucrat. When Hitler ordered Gestapo chief Heinrich Himmler to kill all European Jews, Himmler assigned the details to Obsturmbannfhrer Adolf Eichmann. More civil servant than warrior, Eichmann managed train schedules, kept records and dealt with foreign governments responsible for identifying and rounding up Jews. He ended the war an obscure figure absent from Allied lists of Nazi war criminals. Soon, however, survivors, including Simon Wiesenthal, organized to track down those responsible for the genocide who were still free, and Eichmann became a prime target. Bascomb (Red Mutiny: Eleven Fateful Days on the Battleship Potemkin, 2007, etc.) plumbed the archives and interviewed survivors to produce a surprisingly detailed history of Eichmann's movements during his years of freedom, as well as the work by many individuals that led to his capture. At the end of war, Eichmann spent seven months in Allied prison camps under an alias. Fearing detection after his name became prominent during the Nuremberg trials, he escaped and spent several dreary years as a lumberjack and chicken farmer. He moved to Argentina with the help of an efficient organization created by former SS officers to smuggle ex-Nazis out of Europe. When his wife and children disappeared from Austria in 1952, it was obvious Eichmann must still be alive, but by then the U.S. and West German governments had lost interest in hunting Nazis, and even Israel gave it a low priority. Several individuals turned up clues to his location, but not until 1959 did an Israeli secret service agent visit Argentina and confirm his presence there. Bascomb devotes the book's second half to the complex mission that enabled Israeli agents to kidnap Eichmann and spirit him back for trial. Absorbing and appalling, with some grim satisfaction provided by a stark depiction of the unrepentant Eichmann's execution. Copyright Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
Library Journal Review
In writing this fascinating account of the hunt for notorious Nazi Adolf Eichmann, who managed to elude justice for 15 years living as a fugitive in Buenos Aires, Bascomb (Red Mutiny) drew on extensive interviews, previously classified details, and material including a recently discovered Eichmann memoir. Though many know the end to Eichmann's story, Tony Award-nominated actor Paul Hecht manages through his stellar narration to keep the account suspenseful and gripping throughout. Highly recommended for patrons interested in history, Holocaust studies, espionage, and thrillers. ["The details elicited from Bascomb's interviews.freshen interest in this famous story," read the review of the Houghton hc, LJ 1/09.-Ed.]-Ilka Gordon, Siegal Coll. of Judaic Studies Lib., Cleveland (c) Copyright 2010. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
Excerpts
Excerpts
The man from bus 203 was late. For three weeks now the team tracking him had watched their target return from work to his small brick bunker of a house on Garibaldi Street. Every night was the same: At 7:40 p.m., bus 203 stopped at the kiosk on the narrow highway 110 yards from the corner of Garibaldi Street; the man exited the bus; another passenger, a woman, also exited at the same stop. They separated. Sometimes the man stopped at the kiosk for a pack of cigarettes, but this never took more than a minute. Then he crossed the street and walked toward his house. If a car approached, he turned on his flashlight -- one end red, the other white -- to signal his presence. When he reached his property, he circled the house once before entering, as if checking that all was secure. Inside, he greeted his wife and young son, lit a few additional kerosene lamps, and then sat down for dinner. He was a man of precise routines and schedules. His predictability made him vulnerable. But on this night, Wednesday, May 11, 1960, 7:40 passed, and neither bus 203 nor the man was in sight. The team waited in two cars. One black Chevrolet sedan was parked on the edge of Route 202, facing toward the bus stop. Once the man showed, if he showed, the driver in the backup car would flick on his headlights to blind him before he turned left toward his house. The capture car, a black Buick limousine, was stationed on Garibaldi Street between the highway and the man's home. The driver, in a chauffeur's uniform, had popped the hood to give the impression that the limousine had broken down. Two other men stood outside the car in the cold, windy night, pre- tending to fiddle with the engine. These two were the strongmen, tasked with grabbing the target and getting him into the car -- as quietly and quickly as possible. At 7:44, a bus finally approached on Route 202, but it drove straight past the kiosk. The team could only wait so long in this isolated neighborhood on the northern outskirts of Buenos Aires, Argentina, without attracting too much attention. There was only a scattering of houses on the flat, nearly treeless plain. Cars foreign to the neighborhood stood out. The team leader, hidden in the limousine's back seat, insisted that they stay despite the risks. There was no argument from the team. Not now, not at this critical hour. The man must not be allowed to elude capture. Exactly fifteen years previously, in the last days of the Third Reich, SS lieutenant colonel Adolf Eichmann, chief of Department IVB4 of the Reich Security Main Office and the operational manager of the Nazi genocide, had escaped into the Austrian Alps. He had been listed as killed in action by the woman who now impatiently waited for her husband's return from work. He had been sought by Allied investigators and independent Nazi-hunters such as Simon Wiesenthal. He had reportedly been executed by Jewish avengers. He had been rumored to be living in West Germany, England, Kuwait, the United States, and even Israel. His trail had gone from hot to cold to hot again. He had been so successful at hiding his identity that the Mossad agents now in position on Garibaldi Street were still not 100 percent certain that the man they had come to capture was actually Eichmann. A contingency plan, one of many, was in place if it turned out not to be him. Nonetheless, they were sufficiently convinced to stage a dangerous operation on foreign soil involving more than ten agents, including the head of the Israeli secret service himself. They had read Eichmann's file and been thoroughly briefed on his role in the mass murder of Jews. They were professionals, but it was impossible for them to be impartial about this mission. Since arriving in Argentina, one agent kept seeing the faces of the members of his family who had been killed in the Holocaust. They could wait a few more minutes for bus 203. At 8:05, the team saw another faint halo of light in the distance. Moments later, the bus's headlights shone brightly down the highway, piercing the darkness. Brakes screeched, the bus door clattered open, and the two passengers stepped down onto the street. As the bus pulled away, the woman turned off to the left, moving away from the man. The man headed for Garibaldi Street, bent forward in the wind. His hands were stuffed into his coat. Thunder cracked in the distance, warning of a storm. It was time for Adolf Eichmann to answer for what he had done. Excerpted from Hunting Eichmann: How a Band of Survivors and a Young Spy Agency Chased down the World's Most Notorious Nazi by Neal Bascomb All rights reserved by the original copyright owners. Excerpts are provided for display purposes only and may not be reproduced, reprinted or distributed without the written permission of the publisher.