Transcripts of Adolf Eichmann's Interrogation. Six Volumes.
[Less, Avner W., et al.] Adolf Eichmann. [Jerusalem]: Police d'Israel, Quartier général, 6-ème Bureau, [1961].
Six volumes; oblong 4to.; covers lightly worn, with overall sunning and minor soiling; first volume with some chips and tears and previous owner’s autograph notes; sixth volume with cover detached.
German transcript of the pretrial interrogation of Adolf Eichmann; prefatory material in English, German, and Hebrew; number of copies printed unknown.
The Eichmann interrogation was conducted by a thirty-man team from the Israeli Police Force, led by Captain Avner W. Less, a German-born Jew whose father and numerous relatives perished in Nazi concentration camps during World War II. By his own account, Captain Less questioned Eichmann for 275 hours over the course of nearly a year. The interrogation was recorded and resulted in 3,564 pages of transcripts (the volumes here reproduce two pages of transcript per page). In his introduction to the 1983 book Eichmann Interrogated: Transcripts from the Archives of the Israeli Police, he provided the following summary of the methodology for the interrogation:
Object: To obtain a complete statement from the defendant concerning his goals and activities during the Nazi regime.
Preparations: All the materials assembled under the deputy director of Bureau 06 (that was our team’s official name) were placed at my disposal. The research staff had instructions to direct my attention to every document, every piece of testimony or bit of information that could be of use in the hearings or that could be authenticated or verified by the defendant. For my part, I had to prepare in writing all questions I planned to ask the defendant.
The Hearings: They would be recorded on tape. I was to mark each tape with an identifying label immediately after the end of each hearing. If I considered it desirable that Eichmann amplify his voluntary testimony with written notes, and if Eichmann agreed to this, I could supply him with paper and writing implements. Whenever I handed him a document, I was to solicit his commentary. He was free to refuse such comment.
The Tapes: After each hearing, I was to hand over the tapes of our conversation to the director of the 06 archives. He would have them transcribed and stored in a safe, but first Eichmann and I had to make a word-for-word comparison of each transcript and tape. If any changes were made, Eichmann was to make them by hand; furthermore, he had to confirm in writing that he had approved the correction and that the text of the final transcript was identical to that of the tape recording. The transcript would then be read aloud to the research staff for the purpose of analysis and discussion. The entire body of evidence (the transcripts of the hearings, the documents, the testimony of witnesses) would have to be translated into Hebrew.
After nearly a year, the prosecution and defense were prepared for the trial. It began April 11, 1961.
When Hannah Arendt arrived in Israel in 1961 to cover the Eichmann trial, she reportedly “plowed through” the 3,600-page interrogation transcript. Indeed, in her postscript to Eichmann in Jerusalem, she lists the materials she relied on for research and the first is this transcript – she wrote, “Along with the transcript of the courtroom proceedings, this is the most important of the documents.” In a later interview she would state: “I’ll tell you this: I read the transcript of his police investigation, thirty-six hundred pages, read it, and read it very carefully, and I do not know how many times I laughed – laughed out loud! People took this reaction in a bad way. I cannot do anything about that…”
While transcripts of the trial’s proceedings were distributed to all attending journalists daily, the availability of the interrogation transcript in 1961 is unknown.
Provenance: from the library of British journalist George Gale, who signed his last name in ballpoint pen to the cover of each volume; accompanied by an autograph note from Mr. Gale's son Mark Gale concerning this item: "In the early 1960s my late father, George Gale, was foreign correspondent for the Daily Express. In this capacity he attended the trial of Adolf Eichmann from which he acquired his transcript."
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