Germany 'tried to influence Adolf Eichmann trial'
The German government tried to influence the Adolf Eichmann trial, fearful that his testimony would implicate former Nazis who held high office in post war Germany, new research has disclosed.
Konrad Adenauer, Germany's chancellor at the time of the 1961 trial, personally dispatched one secret agent to Israel as part of a sensitive and classified operation to influence Eichmann's Jerusalem trial and suppress any embarrassment for the West German state.
The agent, working undercover as a journalist, was tasked with monitoring the trial and establishing ties with the prosecution in order to keep the names of other former Nazis, who now had important posts in the German establishment, out of court.
Of particular concern to the German government was the status of Hans Globke, director of the federal chancellery and one of the Mr Adenauer's closest aides, who, in Hitler's Reich, had contributed to the infamous and racist Nuremberg Laws that targeted Germany's Jews....