Sixty years after infamous Nazi war criminal Adolf Eichmann was captured by Mossad agents and brought to Israel for trial, a German media outlet has revealed, for the first time, the identity of the person believed to have turned Eichmann in.
The German newspaper Süddeutsche Zeitung ran a feature article this week describing the role German geologist Gerhard Klammer, who opposed the Nazi regime and who worked with Eichmann in Argentina, played in revealing Eichmann’s true identity to the Mossad.
Associates of Klammer said that Eichmann’s true identity had been an “open secret” in the German community in Argentina and that supporters of the Nazis worked to protect him. But Klammer had opposed the Nazi regime, and therefore sought to have Eichmann face trial.
The two delivered the details of Eichmann’s false identity, as well as a picture of him, to Fritz Bauer, the prosecutor responsible for the Eichmann case. Bauer had already heard about Eichmann’s whereabouts from a German Jew whose daughter dated Eichmannn’s son briefly. The son told the man’s daughter about his father’s new secret identity, but many details were missing. Klammer’s evidence gave Bauer evidence that Eichmann was alive and in Argentina, and the prosecutor reached out to the Mossad, whose agents began searching for him, eventually locating him in a small town near the Argentine capital.
This article first appeared in Israel Hayom.