An interview by University of Wisconsin Law School professor Frank Tuerkheimer of a prosecutor in the trial of Nazi war criminal Adolf Eichmann has been recorded in DVD format and is available online for public viewing.
In 2006, Tuerkheimer traveled to Jerusalem to interview Justice Gabriel Bach about his role as a prosecutor in the trial of Adolf Eichmann 45 years earlier. Bach was the senior prosecutor in the case and had the greatest contact with Eichmann among the three principal prosecutors. He was second in command in the trial of the case to Attorney General Gideon Hausner, now deceased.
The DVD comprises three parts: Bach's personal background, the investigative stage of the trial, and the trial itself.
"If I had to summarize the highlights I would say there are three," Tuerkheimer says. "First, Eichmann’s role. There is an extensive discussion of the power wielded by Eichmann. Contrary to the image of him as a low-level bureaucrat following orders, the facts showed that his commitment to the death of every possible Jew led him to overrule the Italian Foreign Ministry, the cooperating Vichy government in France, a general of the German army who wanted to save a Jewish radar specialist for obvious reasons, the Regent of Hungary, and an agreement by Hitler himself which would have spared 8700 Hungarian Jewish families if Eichmann had not subverted it."
A second highlight, Tuerkheimer says, is the "incredible vignettes -- stories about the one person who was locked in the gas chamber at Auschwitz-Birkenau who survived, how it was discovered that one of the police investigators working on the prosecution was himself a survivor of Auschwitz, and amazing narratives of resistance to and subversion of the German occupiers."
Tuerkheimer considers insights into Eichmann to be the third highlight of the interview. "The shocking results of a psychological profile, his reaction to films taken at the liberation of the concentration camps, and, in moments of candor, his inability to leave the role he played during the war when confronted with documents."
Funding for the interview was provided by the Mae Temkin Fund set up by UW Law School alumnus Victor Temkin ‘60, with the purpose of supporting Holocaust Research and earmarked for Tuerkheimer. The project of interviewing Bach was the result of Tuerkheimer’s hearing him speak at a conference in New York approximately five years ago.
"He made reference to some of the facts of the Eichmann trial that were completely contrary to my understanding of the trial, which was based largely on Hannah Arendt’s Eichmann in Jerusalem," Tuerkheimer says. "I was intrigued, introduced myself, and finally arranged for a video interview, which I did in November 2006. The DVD is the edited version of the interview."
In preparation for the interview, Tuerkheimer read the entire trial manuscript of 3,000 pages, which took more than six weeks. "It made me somewhat of an expert on the trial," he says. "It was an eye-opener."
The DVD, which contains information about the trial that was not previously in the public domain, will be made available to Holocaust libraries throughout the world. Tuerkheimer also hopes to find the funding for subtitles in German and Hebrew.
The DVD can be viewed online on Tuerkheimer’s Web site at http://www.eichmannprosecutorinterview.org .
Submitted by on March 10, 2008
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