Hunting Eichmann (16 page)

Harel was haunted by what the Nazis had done to the Jewish people. The state of Israel existed in part to make sure the Holocaust was never repeated. But Harel did not delve too far into the history of the genocide, sensing that it was so profoundly evil that it was beyond his ability to understand. Now he sat in silence at his desk and opened the Eichmann dossier. He read transcripts from the Nuremberg trials, captured SS files, testimony from Eichmann's staff members, and numerous reports of Eichmann's whereabouts. Curiously, one report stated that Eichmann had been born in the same village where Harel now had his office. Some of the information was from Yad Vashem, some from Simon Wiesenthal, some from Arthur Pier and his Haganah team—Tuviah Friedman and Manus Diamant. The photograph obtained from Eichmann's mistress was in the dossier. Many of the tips concerning his location came from letters sent to Israeli embassies from people who thought they had seen him.

As dawn broke the next day, Harel turned over the last page in the thick dossier. He was deeply unsettled by the portrait he now had of Adolf Eichmann. Here was a man, Harel surmised, who had assembled the apparatus to kill millions of people, who had separated children from their mothers, driven the elderly on long marches, emptied out whole villages, and sent them all to the gas chambers. All the while, he had been beating his chest in pride for being faithful to the SS oath, a soldier and an idealist. It was clear to Harel that Eichmann had killed without compunction and was an expert in police and intelligence methods. Of this he had no doubt. If Eichmann was still alive, he had managed to elude his pursuers time and again and had removed all traces of his existence over the past dozen years. This new information from Germany, solid as it appeared to be, might be yet another false lead. Nevertheless, given what he now knew about Eichmann, Harel set about finding out if that was the case.

First, Isser Harel wanted to learn what Fritz Bauer knew, how he had come to receive the information, and whether he was a reliable individual with whom to work. Any plan for what they would do if they discovered the war criminal would be premature, but Harel knew one thing for sure: they would require much more than an extradition request to the proper authorities in Argentina to secure Eichmann.

After finding out what he could from Felix Shinar, Harel sent one of his Mossad operatives, Shaul Darom, to sit down with Bauer. On November 6, Darom traveled to Frankfurt and met with the attorney general in his home. Pleased at the rapid Israeli response, Bauer explained that his source was a half Jew living in Argentina who had presented facts about Eichmann that matched known details of his life, particularly regarding his family. The source also provided an address where the family was living with a man of the same age as Eichmann. Given rumors that Vera Eichmann had remarried, Darom questioned whether this individual might be her second husband, a possibility that Bauer accepted but discounted. He had made separate inquiries into Vera's location, sending a police investigator to interview her mother in a town near Heidelberg, Germany. Her mother had stated that she had not heard from Vera since 1953 and that her daughter had married an unknown man and moved to America. Bauer suspected that the mother was lying. He provided Darom with the entire Eichmann file, including a blurry photograph from an SS file. The only thing Bauer held back was his source's identity, wanting to protect Lothar Hermann. All attempts by Darom to persuade Bauer to reveal this information were in vain.

Darom sent a positive report to Harel about Bauer, stating that if he were to paint a portrait of the German lawyer, he would paint him with a book in one hand and a sword in the other. He also explained that Bauer was willing to do whatever it took to get to Eichmann, even at the risk of losing his position, and that his tip seemed solid enough to warrant following up.

Soon after, in January 1958, Harel sent another operative, Yoel Goren, to Buenos Aires to investigate who lived at 4261 Chacabuco Street. Goren had spent several years in South America and spoke fluent Spanish. Harel warned him to be cautious, fearing that the slightest error might announce his presence and send Eichmann fleeing.

Over the next week, Goren made his way several times to Olivos by train from the city center. The part of that neighborhood that was closest to the Río de la Plata featured many grand mansions, the summer escapes of the elite. The farther away from the river he walked, the smaller and more ramshackle the houses became. From the accents he heard on the streets, many of the residents were German, and he even saw swastikas painted on the sides of a few buildings. Chacabuco Street was located on the farthest edge of the district, populated by blue-collar workers who commuted to and from the city. It was an untrafficked, unpaved street, and strangers were eyed with more than a little suspicion. This made surveillance a challenge, but what Goren saw at 4261 Chacabuco convinced him that there was little chance that Adolf Eichmann lived there. A dowdy woman tended a garden the size of a postage stamp, and the house itself was more suited to a single unskilled laborer than the family of a man who had once held a prominent position in the Third Reich. According to what the intelligence community knew, Adolf Eichmann had personally pilfered the fortunes of Europe's most prominent Jewish families, not to mention the limited wealth of thousands of others. There was no way this bon vivant with a taste for the high life could have been reduced to such meager quarters, even in hiding.

Surreptitiously, Goren photographed the home before returning to Tel Aviv to report to Harel that the "wretched little house" on Chacabuco Street could not possibly shelter Adolf Eichmann, nor had he seen anyone resembling his description enter or leave the house while it was under his surveillance. Goren made this declaration a mere two weeks after being assigned the case.

When Shaul Darom next spoke to Fritz Bauer, Bauer revised his impression of the Israelis. Such a short investigation could not hope to discover a man who had eluded capture for more than twelve years. Darom informed the attorney general that Harel could not move forward unless he knew the identity of Bauer's source. They needed to trust each other on this matter as well as every other. Bauer relented, and they agreed that Bauer would write a letter of introduction for his "representative" to meet with Lothar Hermann. Harel did not want any trace of the investigation to lead back to the Israelis, although after Goren's report, he was already becoming skeptical that Eichmann resided at the Chacabuco address.

Harel borrowed the head of criminal investigations of the Tel Aviv police, Ephraim Hofstetter, to pose as Bauer's representative. Harel wanted him to ascertain how exactly Hermann knew about Eichmann, whether he was reliable, and whether he was holding anything back. Further, Hofstetter should find out the identity of the individual who lived at 4261 Chacabuco. The Mossad chief had tremendous faith in Hofstetter, a sober professional with twenty years of police investigative experience. Polish by birth, Hofstetter had lost his parents and sister in the Holocaust, and he knew of Eichmann from following the Kasztner trial. The investigator spoke German fluently and could easily pass as Bauer's emissary.

At the end of February, Hofstetter arrived in Buenos Aires wearing a thick layer of winter clothes, only to discover that he had come at the height of summer. He was greeted outside the long, one-story airport terminal by the laughter of a man with a pale complexion and a bald pink head: Ephraim Ilani, a Mossad agent who specialized in Arab operations and had taken a leave of absence to study the history of Jewish settlements in Argentina. Ilani had helped Goren briefly in his earlier investigation. Harel had ordered Ilani to work much more closely with Hofstetter, who did not speak more than a few words of Spanish. Fluent in the local dialect of Spanish (as well as nine other languages), Ilani knew the country well and had a wide network of friends and contacts in Buenos Aires thanks to his easy humor and gregarious nature.

The two traveled to Coronel Suárez by overnight train. At 9:30
A.M.,
they stepped onto the platform of a dilapidated station. Apart from a single road bordered on either side by wooden houses, the remote town was little more than a stepping-off point before the endless grasslands. It was hard to imagine a less obvious place for a clue to Adolf Eichmann's whereabouts.

Ilani inquired around as to how to find the home of Lothar Hermann. The residents and people working in the local businesses were suspicious of the two men, wondering what these foreigners might want with their neighbor. They did not offer to help. At the train station, a taxi driver offered his assistance, but only if they hired him to take them to Hermann's house. As they soon discovered, they could have walked the short distance across the railway tracks. Hofstetter went to the door alone, Ilani staying behind in case there was any trouble. As far as either of them knew, this could be a trap.

When the door opened, Hofstetter introduced himself. "My name is Karl Huppert. I sent you a telegram from Buenos Aires to tell you I was coming."

Hermann gestured for Hofstetter to enter his living room. Hofstetter could not quite place what was wrong with Hermann or the room, but there was something amiss. Aside from a table, a cupboard, and a couple of chairs, the room was bare. Only when he held out his letter of introduction from Bauer and Hermann did not take it did Hofstetter realize that the man was blind. Isser Harel had sent him to investigate a sighting of Adolf Eichmann by a man who could not see.

Hofstetter soon lost his skepticism when Hermann and his wife, who had appeared when called to read the letter, explained in detail how they had first grown suspicious of Nick Eichmann and how their daughter had tracked down his address. Hofstetter found Hermann full of bluster, particularly in regard to his unsubstantiated comments that Eichmann had had plastic surgery and that he had great means at his disposal, but his motives were clear.

"Don't think I started this Eichmann business through any desire to serve Germany," Hermann said. "My only purpose is to even the score with the Nazi criminals who caused me and my family so much agony."

The front door opened, and Sylvia Hermann entered the house, calling hello to her parents. She stopped on seeing Hofstetter, and her father introduced "Mr. Huppert." Without reticence, Sylvia told him about her visit to the Eichmann house.

"Was there anything special about the way he spoke?" Hofstetter asked her.

"His voice was unpleasant and strident, just as Dr. Bauer described it in one of his letters."

Hofstetter questioned whether these letters might have influenced her thinking.

"No," she said bluntly. "I'm a hundred percent sure it was an unbiased impression."

"What you say is pretty convincing," Hofstetter said, struck by the girl's courage and straightforwardness. Everything she said matched the information he had been given before leaving Tel Aviv. "But it isn't conclusive identification. Vera Eichmann may have married again—we've heard many such rumors—and her children may have continued using their father's name." He explained that he needed to know the alias of the person living with Vera and her sons, as well as where he worked. He also would like to obtain any photographs of him or his family, any documents with his name, and, in the best case, a set of his fingerprints.

"I'm certain I'll be able to get you your proof," Lothar Hermann responded. "I've got many friends in Olivos, as well as connections with the local authorities. It won't be difficult for me to get these things. However, it's obvious I'll have to travel to Buenos Aires again, my daughter too ... This will involve further expense, and we simply can't afford it."

Hofstetter promised that his people would cover any expenses. For the sake of secrecy, he instructed that all their correspondence should be sent to him at an address in the Bronx, New York, care of an A. S. Richter. He tore an Argentine dollar in two and gave one half to Hermann. Anybody with the other half could be trusted.

After two hours of planning and discussion, Hofstetter thanked the family and left. He would report back to Harel that the Hermanns were reliable but that more information was needed and they seemed capable of gathering it. As Hofstetter walked back toward town, the taxi that had taken him to the house pulled to his side. Ilani stuck his head out the back window and jokingly asked, "Can I give you a lift, sir?"

10

ON APRIL
8, Sylvia Hermann and her father visited the land records office in La Plata, the capital of the province of Buenos Aires, thirty-four miles southeast of the metropolis. Their German contact had sent the promised funds, and the amateur detectives were now out to collect the evidence that they had the right man.

A clerk brought them the public records on 4261 Chacabuco Street, and Sylvia read the details to her father. An Austrian, Francisco Schmidt, had bought the small plot in Olivos on August 14, 1947, to build two houses. Eichmann was Austrian, Lothar knew, and he had arrived in Buenos Aires after the war. Schmidt must be the alias he was living under now. Excited by this important discovery, Hermann and his daughter took a train to Buenos Aires to look for confirmation. Through a contact at the local electricity company, they found that two meters were registered at the address under the names Dagoto and Klement. Rather than doubt the Schmidt alias, Hermann surmised that these would be two fake names that Schmidt had come up with to obscure his trail. When Hermann chased down the people who had sold Schmidt the land at Chacabuco, he was given a description that resembled the one that Bauer had sent on Eichmann and that his daughter had confirmed on her brief visit to the house. The seller also told him not only that Schmidt had some scars on his face but also that the rumor was he had arrived in Buenos Aires on board a German submarine in 1945.

The following month, the Hermanns returned to Buenos Aires for five days to continue their investigation. On this trip, they discovered a photograph of Nick and heard another rumor that Adolf Eichmann had lived in the interior of the country for several years after arriving from Europe. Their attempts to find his photograph, fingerprints, or identity documents failed. On May 19, Hermann wrote to Huppert in New York, describing their detective work of the past six weeks. "Francisco Schmidt is the man we want," Hermann wrote, explaining that it was likely he had undergone plastic surgery (hence the scars). He wrote that further investigation would require more funds and that he should "hold all the strings" in pursuing the matter. Hermann was sure his discoveries would be met with a call to action.