page_title: Adolf Eichmann
section_title: Appeals and execution
hierarchical_section_title: Adolf Eichmann / Trial / Appeals and execution
caption_attribution_description: English: Nazi war criminal Adolf Eichman walking in yard of his cell in Ayalon Prison, Ramla עברית: הפושע הנאצי אדולף אייכמן מטייל בחצר תאו בכלא רמלה.
context_page_description: Otto Adolf Eichmann was a German-Austrian SS-Obersturmbannführer and one of the major organizers of the Holocaust—the "Final Solution to the Jewish Question" in Nazi terminology. He was tasked by SS-Obergruppenführer Reinhard Heydrich with facilitating and managing the logistics involved in the mass deportation of Jews to ghettos and extermination camps in Nazi-occupied Eastern Europe during World War II. Eichmann was captured by the Mossad in Argentina on 11 May 1960 and subsequently found guilty of war crimes in a widely publicised trial in Jerusalem, where he was executed by hanging in 1962.
  After an unremarkable school career, Eichmann briefly worked for his father's mining company in Austria, where the family had moved in 1914. He worked as a travelling oil salesman beginning in 1927, and joined both the Nazi Party and the SS in 1932. He returned to Germany in 1933, where he joined the Sicherheitsdienst; there he was appointed head of the department responsible for Jewish affairs—especially emigration, which the Nazis encouraged through violence and economic pressure.
context_section_description: Eichmann's defence team appealed the verdict to the Israeli Supreme Court. The appeal was heard by a five-judge Supreme Court panel consisting of Supreme Court President Yitzhak Olshan and judges Shimon Agranat, Moshe Zilberg, Yoel Zussman, and Alfred Witkon. The defence team mostly relied on legal arguments about Israel's jurisdiction and the legality of the laws under which Eichmann was charged. Appeal hearings took place between 22 and 29 March 1962. Eichmann's wife Vera flew to Israel and saw him for the last time at the end of April. On 29 May, the Supreme Court rejected the appeal and upheld the District Court's judgement on all counts. Eichmann immediately petitioned Israeli President Yitzhak Ben-Zvi for clemency. The content of his letter and other trial documents were made public on 27 January 2016. In addition, Servatius submitted a request for clemency to Ben-Zvi and petitioned for a stay of execution pending his planned appeals for extradition to the West German government. Eichmann's wife and brothers also wrote to Ben-Zvi requesting clemency. Prominent people such as Hugo Bergmann, Pearl S. Buck, Martin Buber, and Ernst Simon spoke up against applying the death penalty. Ben-Gurion called a special cabinet meeting to resolve the issue. The cabinet decided not to recommend to President Ben-Zvi that Eichmann be granted clemency, and Ben-Zvi rejected the clemency petition. At 8:00 p.m. on 31 May, Eichmann was informed that his final appeal had been denied.
  Eichmann was hanged at a prison in Ramla hours later. The hanging, scheduled for midnight at the end of 31 May, was slightly delayed and thus took place a few minutes past midnight on 1 June 1962. The execution was attended by a small group of officials, four journalists and the Canadian clergyman William Lovell Hull, who had been his spiritual counselor while in prison. His last words were reported to be
  Long live Germany. Long live Argentina. Long live Austria. These are the three countries with which I have been most connected and which I will not forget. I greet my wife, my family and my friends. I am ready. We'll meet again soon, as is the fate of all men. I die believing in God.
  Rafi Eitan, who accompanied Eichmann to the hanging, claimed in 2014 to have heard him later mumble "I hope that all of you will follow me", making those his final words.
  Within hours Eichmann's body had been cremated, and his ashes scattered in the Mediterranean Sea, outside Israeli territorial waters, by an Israeli Navy patrol boat.
caption: Eichmann in the yard of Ayalon Prison in Israel, 1961
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