Adolf Eichmann - Wikipedia

On May 31, 1962, Adolf Eichmann, the former SS Commander, is hanged near Tel Aviv, Israel. From the article: "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 12:00 a.m. on 1 June 1962.[2] 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.[190] His last words were:

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.[191]

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.[192]

Impact
The trial and the surrounding media coverage sparked renewed interest in wartime events, and the resulting increase in publication of memoirs and scholarly works helped raise public awareness of the Holocaust.[193] The trial received widespread coverage by the press in West Germany, and many schools added material studying the issues to their curricula.[194] In Israel, the testimony of witnesses at the trial led to a deeper understanding of the impact of the Holocaust on survivors, especially among younger citizens who had never suffered state-sponsored oppression.[195]

Hannah Arendt, a political theorist who reported on Eichmann's trial for The New Yorker, described Eichmann in her book Eichmann in Jerusalem as the embodiment of the "banality of evil", as she thought he appeared to have an ordinary personality, displaying neither guilt nor hatred.[3][196] Arendt also wrote that "this case was built on what the Jews had suffered, not on what Eichmann had done."[197] In his 1988 book Justice, Not Vengeance, Wiesenthal said: "The world now understands the concept of 'desk murderer'. We know that one doesn't need to be fanatical, sadistic, or mentally ill to murder millions; that it is enough to be a loyal follower eager to do one's duty."[198] The term "little Eichmanns" became a pejorative term for bureaucrats charged with indirectly and systematically harming others."