A senior German justice official was a key figure in the abduction of Nazi was criminal Adolf Eichmann in 1960, the German news magazine Der Spiegel reported this week.
Fritz Bauer, general prosecutor, provided an agent of the Mossad, Israel’s intelligence service, with information needed for the capture, according to the magazine.
Bauer reportedly had left the doors open to his Frankfurt office, which allowed the Israelis agent, Michael Maor, to enter after office hours.
Maor had instruction too take photos of a file that was lying on the left side of Bauer’s desk. Only after he had developed the film did Maor realize that it was the Adolf Eichmann file.
A few weeks later, Eichmann was kidnapped by Israeli agents near Buenos Aires. He was executed in 1962, after a lengthy and emotional trial in Jerusalem.
Bauer reportedly contacted the Israeli at his own initiative to give them the whereabouts of Eichmann, which were, according to the magazine, unknown until that point in time.
Five years after secret mission in Frankfurt, Maor met Bauer in Israel.
“We reached hands for each other in friendly manner, but we uttered no word about that affair,” Mayor reportedly said.
The Archive of the Jewish Telegraphic Agency includes articles published from 1923 to 2008. Archive stories reflect the journalistic standards and practices of the time they were published.
