Adolf Eichmann's Real Name: Adolf Eichmann

Quick answer: Adolf Eichmann is known in standard reference works as Adolf Eichmann. Encyclopaedia Britannica records that he was born March 19, 1906, in Solingen, Germany, and that Israel hanged him for his part in the Holocaust (Encyclopaedia Britannica; United States Holocaust Memorial Museum). Britannica also lists the form Karl Adolf Eichmann.

Real name and early life

The established public and historical name is Adolf Eichmann. A fuller form, Karl Adolf Eichmann, appears as an "also known as" line in Britannica; it is not used in the title because the short form is the name used by both Britannica and the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum (USHMM). He grew up partly in Linz, Austria, after his family moved from Germany during World War I. Britannica describes a relatively ordinary pre-Nazi life, including work as a traveling salesman for an oil company until he lost the job in the Depression. USHMM likewise notes incomplete mechanical-engineering studies and work as a laborer, office worker, and Vacuum Oil Company salesman.

Career highlights

Eichmann joined the Nazi Party in April 1932 in Linz, Britannica says, and became a member of the SS later that year (USHMM dates the party and SS entry to 1932 at the instigation of Ernst Kaltenbrunner). He served with an SS unit at Dachau in 1934 and then in the Security Service office that dealt with Jewish affairs. After the annexation of Austria he was sent to Vienna, where USHMM says he helped organize a Central Office for Jewish Emigration, a model later used more widely. Britannica states that in January 1942, at the Wannsee Conference, Nazi officials organized the logistics of the "final solution," and that Eichmann was to coordinate the details—the identification, assembly, and transport of Jews from occupied Europe to killing centers including Auschwitz.

Trial and execution

U.S. troops captured him after the war, Britannica says, but he escaped in 1946, lived in Germany under a false identity, and settled in Argentina in 1958. USHMM notes that he used aliases, most famously Ricardo Klement, and that Israeli Mossad agents abducted him in 1960 and brought him to Israel. He was tried in Jerusalem, found guilty in December 1961 of crimes against the Jewish people, and hanged at midnight between May 31 and June 1, 1962, USHMM records. Britannica gives the death date as May 31, 1962, in Tel Aviv; this page notes the midnight timing that produces the May 31 / June 1 difference.

Name notes for searchers

Adolf Eichmann is the name used in standard histories. Britannica also lists Karl Adolf Eichmann. In hiding he used aliases, including Ricardo Klement. He should not be confused with a confidence man; he was a Nazi official convicted for crimes in the Holocaust.