Adolf Eichmann, a leading architect of the Holocaust, was captured, tried, and executed after World War II.

After the war

After Nazi Germany’s defeat, U.S. troops briefly held Eichmann as a prisoner of war, but he escaped from an internment camp in 1946. He fled Europe, eventually settling in Buenos Aires, Argentina, under the alias Ricardo Klement , where he lived for nearly a decade.

Capture and trial

In May 1960, Israeli intelligence agents (Mossad) tracked him down, abducted him from the street, and secretly flew him to Israel. In 1961 he stood trial in Jerusalem on charges including crimes against the Jewish people, crimes against humanity, and membership in hostile organizations.

Verdict and execution

After an eight‑month trial, Eichmann was found guilty on all counts and sentenced to death by hanging. His appeal to the Israeli Supreme Court failed, and he was executed just after midnight on 1 June 1962 at Ramla Prison. His body was cremated and his ashes scattered over the Mediterranean Sea beyond Israel’s territorial waters to prevent any grave from becoming a neo‑Nazi site.

Why it still matters today

Eichmann’s trial was one of the first times the full machinery of the Holocaust was laid out in a public courtroom, shaping how later generations understand Nazi bureaucracy and mass murder. His capture also set a precedent for hunting Nazi war criminals long after the war, and his name remains a symbol of “desk‑drawer” complicity in genocide.

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