A different picture of the man, and the period, has begun to circulate. Bild, the German tabloid, having recently forced the BND through the courts to release a few files, uncovered an index card from 1952 that made clear that West German intelligence officials already knew Eichmann was living in Argentina. The card listed his alias there, or something close to it, and a contact who edited a well-known Nazi magazine in Buenos Aires, Der Weg.
West German authorities had claimed they had no clue where Eichmann went until the Israelis found him. Then in 2006 declassified C.I.A. documents showed they knew as early as 1956. Now it turns out they knew even earlier. Considering that Eichmann’s wife and children settled in Argentina in 1952 ”” living openly with Eichmann under their own names, in a house that was under his name ”” it seems remarkable today that authorities got away with claiming ignorance for so long.
Germans reacted to the Bild article with a familiar shake of the head that, here, implies not a lack of concern but stoic resignation. The bigger kerfuffle, though, has been around the more than 4,000 pages of undisclosed intelligence about Eichmann.
Possible end of a fariy tale–And then, boys and girls, the West German security officials moved to Pakistan founded ISI, which lived happily ever after with no idea where UBL was.
One of the more interesting books I have ever read is:
Eichmann Interrogated: Transcripts from the Archives of the Israeli Police, edited by Jochen von Lang in collaboration with Claus Sibyll. Translated from the German by Ralph Manheim. Farrar, Straus, and Giroux, New York, 1983, 293pp.