Adolf Eichmann Quotes

15 Sourced Quotes

To sum it all up, I must say that I regret nothing.

Adolf Eichmann
Because I have seen hell, death and the devil, because I had to watch the madness of destruction, because I was one of the many horses pulling the wagon and couldn't escape left or right because of the will of the driver, I now feel called upon and have the desire, to tell what happened.

Adolf Eichmann
I am certain, however, that those responsible for the murder of millions of Germans will never be brought to justice.

Adolf Eichmann
During cross-examination, prosecutor Hausner asked Eichmann if he considered himself guilty of the murder of millions of Jews. Eichmann replied: "Legally not, but in the human sense … yes, for I am guilty of having deported them". When Hausner produced as evidence a quote by Eichmann in 1945 stating: "I will leap into my grave laughing because the feeling that I have five million human beings on my conscience is for me a source of extraordinary satisfaction." Eichmann countered the claim saying that he was referring only to "enemies of the Reich".

Adolf Eichmann
Before his execution:
In a short while, gentlemen, we'll meet each other, anyway. That's every human's fortune. Long live Germany! Long live Argentina! Long live Austria! … I won't forget you.

Adolf Eichmann
Obeying an order was the most important thing to me. It could be that is in the nature of the German.

Adolf Eichmann
I was never an anti-Semite. … My sensitive nature revolted at the sight of corpses and blood... I personally had nothing to do with this. My job was to observe and report on it.

Adolf Eichmann
My political sentiments inclined toward the left and emphasized the socialist aspects every bit as much as nationalist ones.

Adolf Eichmann
When I arrived at the place of the execution, the gunmen fired into a pit the size of several rooms. They fired from small submachine guns. As I arrived, I saw a Jewish woman and a small child in her arms in the pit. I wanted to pull out the child, but then a bullet smashed the skull of the child. My driver wiped brain particles from my leather coat.

Adolf Eichmann
Whether they were bank directors or mental cases, the people who were loaded on those trains meant nothing to me.
It was really none of my business.

Adolf Eichmann
I was sent to Treblinka, Minsk, Lemberg and Auschwitz. When I see the images before my eyes, it all comes back to me … Corpses, corpses, corpses. Shot, gassed, decaying corpses. They seemed to pop out of the ground when a grave was opened. It was a delirium of blood. It was an inferno, a hell, and I felt I was going insane.

Adolf Eichmann
Now that I look back, I realize that a life predicated on being obedient and taking orders is a very comfortable life indeed. Living in such a way reduces to a minimum one's own need to think.

Adolf Eichmann
Today, 15 years after 8 May 1945, I know…that a life of obedience, led by orders, instructions, decrees and directives, is a very comfortable one in which one's creative thinking is diminished.

Adolf Eichmann
Adolf Hitler may have been wrong all down the line, but one thing is beyond dispute: the man was able to work his way up from lance corporal in the German Army to Führer of a people of almost 80 million. … His success alone proved that I should subordinate myself to this man.

Adolf Eichmann
From my childhood, obedience was something I could not get out of my system. When I entered the armed services at the age of 27, I found being obedient not a bit more difficult than it had been during my life to that point. It was unthinkable that I would not follow orders.

Adolf Eichmann