False Gods: The Jerusalem Memoirs

by Adolf Eichmann, Alexander Jacob (Translator)

Adolf Eichmann was head of Gestapo Division IV-B4, the Third Reich's notorious Security Service, which was responsible for implementing the "Final Solution" of the European Jews in the Greater German Reich. False Gods is a book that will be controversial - not only with the Jewish community, but also with the historical "revisionists" who seek to deny the Holocaust. Eichmann's testimony not only challenges the generally accepted history of that period, but it provides much in-depth detail of the historical facts - facts which Eichmann himself was fully prepared to confirm from the surviving documents of the period that were submitted by both the prosecution and defense during his trial. In False Gods Eichmann "I shall describe the genocide of the Jews, how it happened and give, in addition, my thoughts of the past and of today. For not only did I have to see with my own eyes the fields of death, the battlefields on which life died away, I saw much worse. I saw how, through a few words, through the mere concise order of an individual to whom the state gave authority, such fields for the extinction of life were created. I saw the machinery of death. Grasping cogs within cogs, like clockwork. I saw those who observed the process of the work; and during the process. I saw them always repeating the work and they looked at the seconds-hand, which hurried; hurried like life to death. The greatest and cruellest dance of death of all time. That I saw. And I prepare to describe it, as a warning". Adolf Eichmann

323 pages, Kindle Edition

Published October 23, 2018

About the author

Nazi official Adolf Eichmann of Germany as head of the Jewish section from 1939 to 1945 of the Gestapo chiefly responsibly murdered millions of Jews during World War II and after the war fled to South America; the Israeli secret service in 1960 captured him, whom people tried and executed.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Adolf_E...

Reviews

[Aleksandar · Rating 4 out of 5]

When reading the memoirs written by Nazi functionaries, one gets the feeling that there was no anti-Semitism in Nazi Germany, that only 3-4 people (other than Hitler) were actually anti-Semites, the others were actually philo-Semites who just happened to be at the wrong place at the wrong time. This is the line that Eichmann also presents in this book, in addition to the standard - "I was just following orders", with the added "I did not want to but I had to do it, and there was nothing I could do to stop it anyways. If it weren't me, it would've been someone else". From this, it follows, according to Eichmann, that he was not legally guilty for anything that happened.

Another point which was very interesting to me, is how Eichmann presents himself as this "small man", as somebody not at all important, an average, nothing special person and how the positions that he held somehow happened to him - yet he grew in the ranks quite quickly, for somebody who is an average nobody. His overall defense is quite weak, though there is certainly truth in the fact that a lot of things were piled up on him - things he was not responsible for - on the account that he was not yet caught immediately after the war, however he does that himself on numerous occasions, pushing all the guilt on Himmler, Heydrich and Hitler. The evidence that he presents is also on point and while I am certainly no Eichmann expert, I believe that it needs to be stated that the evidence works in his favor, several times.

But the importance of this book lies in the third part where Eichmann exposes his philosophy and new world-view which was quite interesting to read, especially when contrasted to parts I and II which were dry. Here Eichmann presents his idea of a non-nationalistic, non-totalitarian world government (Kantian influence) where regional governments would serve only to bring happiness to the people. He does not go into details how such a world government would rule without being totalitarian but nevertheless, the essays in Part III are deeply philosophical, and actually show the depth of intelligence which Eichmann possessed, which was probably the main reason why he grew so quickly within the movement.

All in all, it is difficult to assess how truly regretful Eichmann was for serving the "False gods" because on the one hand, he knew his fate, but on the other the production of the book was ordered, it was part of his sentence, but the primary importance of the book lies in the opportunity it allows the reader to grasp his intellect, which becomes blatantly obvious in the last part of the book. In the end, I will leave a quote from the book which I found oddly relatable: "The one who can develop for himself a world-view, who works it out and derives his inner peace from this representation and considers this in itself as valid for the moment is to be called a fortunate person".