The Eichmann Interview

by Flavian Mark Lupinetti

Adolf Eichmann, welcome to Fresh Air.

Guten Tag, Terry.

Colonel Eichmann...

Please, call me Adolfo.

You were tried for war crimes in 1962, convicted, and hanged. Could you tell our audience how you managed to be with us today?

I received a special dispensation—one day outside Hell to walk among the living...

A day off from Hell? I find that surprising.

Ja. But the Overlord of the Underworld is really a sweetheart when you come down to it. And I am one of his pets.

I’m surprised as well that you chose to come on this show.

Where else? O’Reilly? That dummkopf never lets his guests get a word in edgewise. No, despite our political differences, I enjoy your show much more. I guess you could say I march to the beat of a different drummer. Not so banal after all, am I?

You’re referring, of course, to Hannah Arendt’s famous description of you. She said you personified the “banality of evil.” Would you care to discuss that?

Ja, natürlich. When you put your heart and soul into concentration-camp management and somebody refers to your work as banal, it hurts. Especially when it appears in The New Yorker. I always liked that magazine, even though I got only half the cartoons.

Well, she wasn’t out to write a puff piece.

No. But we kid about it now. “Hey, Hannah,” I sometimes say to her. “The brimstone this week is pretty banal, eh, liebschen?”

My goodness. Hannah Arendt in Hell. I wouldn’t have guessed.

It’s the ones who don’t expect it who have the toughest time adapting. I mean, I knew I was going to Hell. But as Gandhi was saying last week...

Wait a second. Gandhi is in Hell?

Oh, sure. Him, Rosa Parks, Kurt Vonnegut. A lot of people you wouldn’t have predicted. One of the most surprising to me? Joe Strummer.

The musician?

Ja. Shocked the Scheiße out of me. If the front man for The Clash ends up in Hell, you can pretty much imagine what’s in store for the Eagles. You see, Terry, it turns out that the ancient Greeks
were close to the mark in their description of the afterlife. Almost everyone goes to Hades! You cross the River Styx...they got it wrong about the dog, though.

You’re referring to Cerberus, the three-headed dog who prevents people from leaving Hades?

That’s the one. No dogs. Instead they make you fill out kilos and kilos of paperwork if you want to leave. Takes forever. Everybody finally gives up.

Despite your role in the Holocaust, after World War II ended, you managed to live comfortably in Argentina for many years.

Comfortably? I don’t think so. Have you ever tried to find a decent Gewürztraminer in Buenos Aires?

What I mean is, you lived an ordinary life until the Mossad caught up with you. You must have had a lot of help.

Oh, some of the old gang lent a hand here and there. Mostly, the West German government and the CIA. They just kept their mouths shut about where I was.

Why did they do that?

Goodness, Terry. With all the former Nazis they brought on board? It would have been embarrassing, to say the least, possibly counterproductive as well.

Counterproductive to what?

The fight against Communism, natürlich. Come on, everybody knows that when you bring Nazis to the party, you bring a certain style. Some things are simply done better when we’re involved: military uniforms, downhill skiing, sports cars. Also, fighting the Commies.

Are you saying the West wouldn’t have won the Cold War without Nazis?

Are you saying that a Corvette is a Porsche? The West probably would have won, just not with the same flair. As it was, they missed so many opportunities. Ach, if they’d have put me in charge of the Eastern Zone after German reunification, I could have built camps for those Reds that would have made Auschwitz look like Disneyland.

Hmm. Any regrets about your life?

Ja. I was a workaholic. And it’s true what they say, Terry. When you’re on your deathbed—or in my case, the gallows—you don’t find yourself wishing you spent more time at the office.