Eichmann in My Hands Quotes

“Evil does not exist in isolation. It is a product of amorality by consensus.”
― Peter Z. Malkin, Eichmann in My Hands: A First-Person Account by the Israeli Agent Who Captured Hitler's Chief Executioner

“Eichmann’s anti-Semitism undoubtedly started more as a theoretical position than as anything visceral. His closest childhood friend was a Jew named Harry Selbar.”
― Peter Z Malkin, Eichmann in My Hands: A First-Person Account by the Israeli Agent Who Captured Hitler's Chief Executioner

“As to answers, the only one I managed to come up with was a cliché, the one having to do with the way Germans view authority and personal responsibility. Which is not to say it is invalid. Beyond question, certain traits do tend to predominate in certain cultures. Most are neither good nor bad by definition: The same brooding romanticism routinely observed in Hitler helped shape Beethoven and Goethe; the same veneration for efficiency that made it possible for the Nazis to slaughter on so massive a scale has given rise to five generations of automotive engineers. There is little doubt that the particular brand of cruelty that flourished in the Third Reich, and the broad, unswerving allegiance to a madman that made it possible, were at least as much a matter of German as of human nature.”
― Peter Z Malkin, Eichmann in My Hands: A First-Person Account by the Israeli Agent Who Captured Hitler's Chief Executioner

“Less than ten years after the Holocaust, there was infinitely less shame or sorrow over what had happened than clear regret that the war had not been won, less concern with moral responsibility than annoyance that the matter was still being raised at all.”
― Peter Z Malkin, Eichmann in My Hands: A First-Person Account by the Israeli Agent Who Captured Hitler's Chief Executioner

“It is hardly a secret that innumerable German scientists, formerly engaged in research for the Third Reich, played a decisive role in the rocket programs of the United States and the Soviet Union. What remains largely unknown even today is that others, including more than a few rabid and unrepentant Nazis, were brought into the employ of the Arab states, most notably Nasser’s Egypt, to fight Israel.”
― Peter Z Malkin, Eichmann in My Hands: A First-Person Account by the Israeli Agent Who Captured Hitler's Chief Executioner

“In some respects surveillance is a skill that can be learned and mastered. Not attracting attention to oneself is very much a matter of technique.”
― Peter Z Malkin, Eichmann in My Hands: A First-Person Account by the Israeli Agent Who Captured Hitler's Chief Executioner

“Few outsiders have a full understanding of how much, even today, Israeli policy remains a visceral reaction to the specter of our loved ones being herded into the ovens.”
― Peter Z Malkin, Eichmann in My Hands: A First-Person Account by the Israeli Agent Who Captured Hitler's Chief Executioner

“Even as the war began to go badly and others sought ways to put a better face on their activities, Eichmann adamantly opposed the deals with outsiders, supported by some of his more pragmatic colleagues, in which Jewish lives were to be bartered for desperately needed trucks or clothing. It thus came as a considerable surprise to his colleagues when in late 1944 he finally relented, agreeing to the departure of seventeen hundred Hungarian Jews for Spain. But, hardly for the first time, others had underestimated the man. At the last minute the train was diverted to Bergen-Belsen.”
― Peter Z Malkin, Eichmann in My Hands: A First-Person Account by the Israeli Agent Who Captured Hitler's Chief Executioner

“Eichmann was very cynical in his attitude toward the Jewish question,” his subordinate Dieter Wisliceny would later explain. "He gave no indication of human feeling toward these people. He was not immoral; he was amoral and completely ice-cold in his attitude.”
― Peter Z Malkin, Eichmann in My Hands: A First-Person Account by the Israeli Agent Who Captured Hitler's Chief Executioner

“It was only years after the war that the Irgun position was somewhat vindicated. In fact, for all the noble talk, the British had been doing almost nothing on behalf of Europe’s doomed Jews. Even as the various factions were arguing the point in Palestine, Jewish leaders, increasingly aware of the horrifying facts, were strenuously urging that the RAF begin bombing the rail lines leading to Auschwitz. It was an eminently achievable task, since English planes were already bombing Warsaw, two hundred miles farther from their base. The English leadership refused without explanation. It does not take much of a cynic to guess that they saw an advantage in cutting down the possible number of postwar Jewish refugees to Palestine.”
― Peter Z Malkin, Eichmann in My Hands: A First-Person Account by the Israeli Agent Who Captured Hitler's Chief Executioner

“Thus it was that during this period, while still earning regular promotions, including one in 1937 in which his immediate superior lauded his “comprehensive knowledge of the organizational methods and ideology of Jewry, the enemy,” Eichmann generally went about his work far behind the scenes. His work at this time, he recalled, “was often of a confidential and embarrassing nature, as when I established that the Führer’s diet cook, who was at one time his mistress, was one thirty-second Jewish. My immediate superior, Lieutenant General Heinrich Müller, quickly classified the report as Top Secret.”
― Peter Z Malkin, Eichmann in My Hands: A First-Person Account by the Israeli Agent Who Captured Hitler's Chief Executioner

“Evil does not exist in isolation. It is a product of amorality by consensus.”
― Peter Z Malkin, Eichmann in My Hands: A First-Person Account by the Israeli Agent Who Captured Hitler's Chief Executioner

“I had Jewish friends.”
― Peter Z Malkin, Eichmann in My Hands: A First-Person Account by the Israeli Agent Who Captured Hitler's Chief Executioner

“He brought hope of jobs and bread. I freely admit it; I was inspired as much as anyone.”
― Peter Z Malkin, Eichmann in My Hands: A First-Person Account by the Israeli Agent Who Captured Hitler's Chief Executioner

“But it wasn’t only me.”
― Peter Z Malkin, Eichmann in My Hands: A First-Person Account by the Israeli Agent Who Captured Hitler's Chief Executioner

“Eichmann seemed a classic weakling, lacking the character even to accept his fate.”
― Peter Z Malkin, Eichmann in My Hands: A First-Person Account by the Israeli Agent Who Captured Hitler's Chief Executioner

“You never know when you’ll need something to nosh.”
― Peter Z Malkin, Eichmann in My Hands: A First-Person Account by the Israeli Agent Who Captured Hitler's Chief Executioner

“What was Christopher Columbus, an office drudge?”
― Peter Z Malkin, Eichmann in My Hands: A First-Person Account by the Israeli Agent Who Captured Hitler's Chief Executioner

“someone who relishes power for its own sake is merely hiding his own insecurities”
― Peter Z Malkin, Eichmann in My Hands: A First-Person Account by the Israeli Agent Who Captured Hitler's Chief Executioner

“Show me a smart and able superior, preferably one with a sense of humor, and I’ll follow him anywhere.”
― Peter Z Malkin, Eichmann in My Hands: A First-Person Account by the Israeli Agent Who Captured Hitler's Chief Executioner

“I’m the boss here, you lazy bastard!”
― Peter Z Malkin, Eichmann in My Hands: A First-Person Account by the Israeli Agent Who Captured Hitler's Chief Executioner