Mossad Captures Eichmann: Nazi Hunt Ends in Buenos Aires
Israeli Mossad agents identified Adolf Eichmann living under the alias Ricardo Klement in a working-class neighborhood of Buenos Aires on May 11, 1960. A four-man team grabbed him as he walked home from a bus stop, bundled him into a car, and held him in a safe house for nine days before smuggling him aboard an El Al flight disguised as a sedated crew member. Eichmann had been the SS officer responsible for organizing the transportation of millions of Jews to extermination camps. His trial in Jerusalem, which lasted from April to December 1961, was the first to be televised internationally. Hannah Arendt covered it for The New Yorker, coining the phrase "the banality of evil." Eichmann was hanged on June 1, 1962, the only execution Israel has ever carried out.
May 11, 1960
66 years ago
Key Figures & Places
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