Ward Churchill and Adolf Eichmann: History Refresher

Jewish Virtual Library ^ | February 22, 2005 | GretchenM

[GretchenM]

I didn’t understand Ward Churchill’s comments when he compared some of the victims of September 11, 2001 to “little Eichmanns,” even after having read his explanation. Still trying to figure out what Churchill was getting at, I refreshed my mind on details of Adolf Eichmann's pathetic life, available on the Internet. Although I can’t make sense of what correlation Churchill was trying to draw (readers, please feel free to offer interpretations or elucidation), I thought this was a good opportunity to highlight some biographical information on this terrible man, Adolf Eichmann, drenched as he was in executing Hitler's "final solution" regarding the Jewish people, so (bizarrely) referenced by the tenured professor Churchill.

[GretchenM]

Adolf Eichmann

 

(1906-1962)

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SS Lieutenant-Colonel who was Chief of the Jewish Office of the Gestapo during World War II and implemented the 'Final Solution' which aimed at the total extermination of European Jewry, Adolf Eichmann was born in Solingen on 19 March 1906.

The declasse son of a solid middle-class Protestant family which had moved to Linz, Austria, where Eichmann spent his youth, he failed to complete his engineering studies. After working briefly as an ordinary labourer in his father's small mining enterprise and then in the sales department of an Upper Austrian electrical construction company, Eichmann became a travelling salesman for the Vacuum Oil Company between 1927 and 1933.

On April 1, 1932 he joined the Austrian Nazi Party at the suggestion of his compatriot Ernst Kaltenbrunner. Having lost his job he sought employment across the border in Bavaria in July 1933, joining the exiled Austrian legion and undergoing fourteen months' military training.

In September 1934 he found an opening in Himmler's Security Service (SD) which provided him with an outlet for his bureaucratic talents. By the beginning of 1935 he was the official responsible for 'Jewish questions' at the Berlin head office of the SD, specializing in the Zionist movement. He acquired a smattering of Hebrew and Yiddish, and briefly visited Palestine in 1937 to explore the possibilities of Jewish emigration from Nazi Germany to Palestine.

Appointed assistant to the SD leader of the SS main region, Danube, Eichmann's first big opportunity came after he was sent to Vienna by the Gestapo to prepare the ground for the Anschluss.

From August 1938 he was in charge of the "Office for Jewish Emigration" in Vienna set up by the SS as the sole Nazi agency authorized to issue exit permits for Jews from Austria, then Czechoslovakia and later the old German Reich. Eichmann's acquired expertise in "forced emigration"--in less than eighteen months approximately 150,000 Jews left Austria--and extortion was to prove an ideal training-ground for his later efficiency in "forced evacuation," i.e., the registering, assembly and deportation of Jews to extermination centres in the East. By March 1939 he was already handling forced deportations to Poland and, in October of the same year, he was appointed special adviser on the "evacuation" of Jews and Poles.

In December 1939 Eichmann was transferred to Amt IV (Gestapo) of the Reich Main Security Office (RSHA) where he took over Referat IV B4 dealing with Jewish affairs and evacuation. For the next six years Eichmann's office was the headquarters for the implementation of the 'Final Solution'; though it was not until the summer of 1941 that his 'resettlement' department began the task of creating death camps, developing gassing techniques and organizing the system of convoys that were to take European Jewry to their deaths.

It was in 1941 that Eichmann first visited Auschwitz and in November of the same year he was promoted to SS Lieutenant-Colonel. He had already begun to organize the mass deportation of Jews from Germany and Bohemia, in accordance with Hitler's order to make the Reich free of Jews as rapidly as possible.

The Wannsee Conference of January 20, 1942 consolidated Eichmann's position as the "Jewish specialist" of the RSHA and Heydrich now formally entrusted him with implementing the "Final Solution." In this task Eichmann proved to be a model of bureaucratic industriousness and icy determination even though he had never been a fanatical anti-semite and always claimed that "personally" he had nothing against Jews. His zeal expressed itself in his constant complaints about obstacles in the fulfilment of death-camp quotas, his impatience with the existence of loopholes such as the free zone in Vichy France or the unco- operativeness of the Italians and other German allies in expediting their Jews.

When even Himmler became more "moderate" towards the end of the war, Eichmann ignored his 'no gassing' order, as long as he was covered by immediate superiors like Heinrich Muller and his old friend, Kaltenbrunner. Only in Budapest after March 1944 did the desk-murderer become a public personality, working in the open and playing a leading role in the massacre of Hungarian Jewry. In August 1944 the 'Grand Inquisitor' of European Jewry could report to Himmler that approximately four million Jews had died in the death camps and that another two million had been killed by mobile extermination units. Though arrested at the end of the war, Eichmann's name was not yet widely known and he was able to escape from an American internment camp in 1946 and flee to Argentina. He was eventually tracked down by Israeli secret agents on May 2, 1960, living under an assumed name in a suburb of Buenos Aires. Nine days later he was secretly abducted to Israel, to be publicly tried in Jerusalem. The trial, which aroused enormous international interest and some controversy, took place between April 2 and August 14, 1961. On December 2, 1961 Eichmann was sentenced to death for crimes against the Jewish people and crimes against humanity. On May 31, 1962 he was executed in Ramleh prison.

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Source: Wistrich, Robert S. Who's Who in Nazi Germany, Routledge, 1997. USHMM photo.

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More biographical information (some paragraphs describing the extermination of Jews are graphic):  http://www.historyplace.com/worldwar2/biographies/eichmann.htm 

[GretchenM]

I would be interested to read any comments you might have on the above.

[msnimje]

I want someone to ask Ward Churchill the following question. "If your son where at the World Trade center to deliver a package or pick up an insurance check on 9-11. would you call him a 'Little Eichman.'"

[laissez- faire]

Here's my stab: having worked in the World Trade Center, I believe Churchill believes that anyone that participates in a capitalist/free market system is responsible for the the death of children in Iraq that were brought on by UN sanctions due to a series of violations by Saddam Hussein. Crystal Clear?!?!

[Maceman]

I guess that makes Juliana McCourt, age 4 in this picture, the "Littlest Eichmann."

She died on 9/11 with her mother (pictured also) on Flight 175.

[SilentServiceCPOWife]

I think he chose Eichmann because he wanted to use the name of a Nazi that hadn't been overused. To those on the left, anyone pursuing the American dream or fighting for its freedom is a Nazi. They've worn out Hitler and Churchill had to come up with some new material to get people to pay attention to him.

[Eric in the Ozarks]

There's nothing to understand about Churchill. He needs to be run off, shunned, banned from contact with normal people.

[Mad Mammoth]

I guess that makes Juliana McCourt, age 4 in this picture, the "Littlest Eichmann."
She died on 9/11 with her mother (pictured also) on Flight 175.

Yeah, let's hear what Ward Churchill has to say about that.

Ah Hell, never mind my FRiend, if Ward Churchill had been on one of those hijacked airliners on 9/11, he would have asked for an extra set of boxcutters himself so he could assist the terrorists in cutting the throats of all those 'Eichmanns', and then would have been screaming 'Allah Akbar' as the planes hit the WTC, just to show his solidarity with his American-hating brethren.

One day, he'll get to account for his words when he meets up with the victims of 9/11, they on one side of the River, rejoicing in the Presence of their Creator while Churchill, on the other side, will be wailing and gnashing his teeth in darkness, lamely crying 'I didn't mean it! I didn't mean it!' as one of Hell's jailers drags him away, saying 'Oh yes you did.'

[j. earl carter]

I was thinking that Church-ill believes all white people in the U.S. are "little Eichmanns" because of the genocide the white people pepetrated on American Indians.

Your explanation makes more sense since so many 9/11 victims were not white Americans.

Of course, there is no reason to think Church-ill's reasoning has to make sense.

[Koan]

Church-ill is white.

[jonlane]

yeah, i heard about him actually not even being a native american, but i couldn't find anything on this that got into much detail. does anyone have a link to a story explaining how it came out that hes not native american?

thanks

[Garvin]

BRAVO!

[grizzly84]

I wish there was something to call this guy besides Churchill, I keep thinking Winston for a split second when I see the name.

[expatpat]

I think Ward Churchill's fevered mind was trying to make an equivalence with what happened to the Native Americans.

[GretchenM]

wish there was something to call this guy besides Churchill, I keep thinking Winston for a split second when I see the name.

I do too. It's unfortunate that his first initial is W.

[Texas Federalist]

Ann Coulter explained it a few weeks ago. Apparently, his one Indian relative in his family tree (back in the 1700s) turned out to be a second husband and not a blood relative.

[GretchenM]

I believe Churchill believes that anyone that participates in a capitalist/free market system is responsible for the the death of children in Iraq that were brought on by UN sanctions due to a series of violations by Saddam Hussein. Crystal Clear?!?!

He did accuse himself in his "explanation," to wit: "Churchill said he was referring to 'technocrats' who participate in what he calls repressive American policies around the world. He said those include Iraqi trade sanctions after the first Gulf War that have been blamed for the deaths of 500,000 children. 'I didn't mean the floor sweepers, the passers-by, the children,' Churchill said. ... Churchill said he shares some guilt because he participates in the system he accuses of wrongdoing: 'I could do more. I'm complicit. I'm not innocent.'"

So .... who, one wonders, does he blame for the hundreds of thousands of adults killed by Saddam and his killing squads?

[OldFriend]

Churchill later differentiated between the worker types and the bond traders and those who were feeding the capitalist goals of America.

[OldFriend]

Sadly enough, there are not many Americans who could even tell you who Eichmann was.

[JewishRighter]

Same here. But that brings to mind the saying: "Whats in a name?" The answer from Ward (as compared with Winston) is apparently: "absolutely nothing"