Eichmann's handwriting - ancient and modern.

[offlinejnovitz]

This arose out of a discussion of Eichmann's bizarre behaviour at his trial.

I thought it might be interesting to compare the handwriting of Eichmann during the war and his "memoirs" supposedly written in Israeli captivity - and where would we be without all these convenient prison memoirs of Nazis?

Here is a page, slightly magnified, of a letter written in prison. It was released a few years ago to the media



http://img130.imageshack.us/img130/7267/1592075qk2.jpg


And here is page of his handwritten CV from the Berlin Document Center



http://img515.imageshack.us/img515/5774/untitled1db8.jpg


The two writing styles look very different even if you consider one was written in 1940 and the other in 1960.

The only point where they look the same is that where Eichmann has printed his name in the top left hand corner of his Lebenslauf, this looks surprisingly similiar to how he signs his name in 1960

cf


I am not so good at photoshop so you get two copies of the printed Lebenslauf version. There are some slight differences for example the earlier version has loops on the "h" and the "f" which the other lacks and so forth, but overall the names are very similiar.

However, to me it seems that the signature on the later version is completely out of character to the rest of the letter, whereas the printed name on the Lebenslauf seems to grow organically out of the rest of the script.

My suggestion is that may be whoever wrote this letter may have used the Lebenslauf for a model to sign the name, but it is too difficult to do that for anything other than copying a name letter for letter.

Incidently the War Crimes unit in Haifa have the entire Berlin Document Center in copies, so they would have no trouble locating the Lebenslauf as a model.

I am interested if there are any further facismiles of Eichmann's memoirs out there.

[offlineFrederik Jensen]

This is very interesting. The two scripts surely look very different, but it's difficult to compare here. I don't know how to do this but maybe you could take out a small part of each text and place them next to each other. Or maybe one of the moderators could do it, and post it in the Eichmann trial thread too, where it belongs as a part of the evidence of the Eichmann trial.

Regarding the scripts, the letter d is written in a very characteristic way in the 1937 sample, but in a normal way in the prison letter of Richard Klement aka Adolf Eichmann or whoever wrote this.

[offlineMJB]

Does anybody know of a higher quality version of the first image? It might be easier to take some specimens and make a comparison.

[offlinejnovitz]

MJB, I understand (though I have not checked myself) that there is an edition of Eichmanns memoirs than includes at least some facsimile pages. I also seem to remember some on a website somewhere, which I cant locate (Sergey Romanov from another forum also says they exist, alas he is unwilling to provide the link, even when I asked very nicely).

Until then I can but leave you with a specimen of some of the excellent writing contained within these memoirs.

It was a very cold and foggy day when I arrived at the place chosen by the Einsatzkammando for the job. I was freezing, though I was wearing a leather coat which reached down to my ankles. At the spot chosen, there was an enormous grave. It looked to me like an anti-tank ditch, but as I came nearer to it I saw that the grave was almost half-filled with naked corpses: men, women, old people and children.

It looks like a literary work of the highest order.

[offlinejnovitz]

In volume 8 of the Eichmann trial there are a lot of facsimilies of Eichmann's handwriting and the match is exact with Berlin Document Center CV.

Although the letter to Friedman still looks very different to me, which leaves lingering doubts about its authenticity in my mind.

So that torpedos my theory about a bogus Eichmann in the Israeli trial.

However, there is no doubt that Eichmann was highly cooperative and provided very helpful false testimony for the Israelis and frankly, I see little support for torture as a reason.

Perhaps the Walter Rauff model is the explanation?
Indeed, perhaps Eichmann was never particularly anti-semitic

As I posted in the Shills Forum, in between periodic bannings from the chronically underemployed Nick Terry.

According to the affadavit Hoettl gave in the Eichmann trial

"In order to obtain promotion by way of specialization, he studied Jewish subjects, and when German service units went to Austria, following the entry of German troops on the Anschluss in 1938, he accompanied them to Vienna and set up the office already referred to in Prinz Eugen Strasse. He also told me that he had made an official trip to Palestine in 1937, and that he could speak some Yiddish and Hebrew. In reply to the Court's questions: Whether Eichmann is of Jewish descent, I do not actually know. I can confirm that already in his earlier years that was the impression he gave, and because of that he was teased by his colleagues, which always made him angry; but I never discussed the matter with him."

Trial of Adolf Eichmann Volume V page 1878. The trip to Palestine is, of course, factual, he went on the invitation of the Haganath organisation to discuss facilitating immigration. At his trial it was made out he was meeting the Mufti, but of course that was nonsense. I have not yet discovered if Eichmann endorsed that nonsense during his trial or just kept quiet.There is a rather odd report in his SS file about a group of SA roughs going to disrupt a Jewish music performance in a cafe and being interrupted by Eichmann, who was a member of the audience, telling them they were interfering with his listening pleasure and to lay off. Something similiar is depicted here:

Elderly people who still live on the street spoke easily of life between the Eichmanns and the Jewish Schwager family. Such ties were routine until the Holocaust. Looking over town documents, Shagrir found a 1926 picture of his grandfather being crowned president of Linz's Jewish community. Sitting four seats away, at a ceremony attended by about 100 of the town's VIPs, was Eichmann's father, who as president of the Protestant community was a natural ally of the Jewish leader.

http://web.israelinsider.com/Articles/Culture/8322.htm

[offline Hektor]

In volume 8 of the Eichmann trial there are a lot of facsimilies of Eichmann's handwriting and the match is exact with Berlin Document Center CV.

Although the letter to Friedman still looks very different to me, which leaves lingering doubts about its authenticity in my mind.

So that torpedos my theory about a bogus Eichmann in the Israeli trial.

However, there is no doubt that Eichmann was highly cooperative and provided very helpful false testimony for the Israelis and frankly, I see little support for torture as a reason.

Perhaps the Walter Rauff model is the explanation?
Indeed, perhaps Eichmann was never particularly anti-semitic...

Yes who say's that it was the real Eichmann at the trial?


Unfortunately those funny glasses cover the part of the eyes and make comparison difficult. I guess that the real Eichmann had light blue eyes.

P.S.: what's the Rauff model?

[offlineCarto's Cutlass Supreme]

Regarding bizarre behavior: when you see video of Echmann at the trial, he squints and blinks a lot which appears to be symptoms of tardive dyskenesia.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tardive_dyskinesia

"tardive dyskinesia (pronunciation) is an incurable, potentially fatal variety of dyskinesia[1] (involuntary, repetitive movements) manifesting as a side effect of long-term or high-dose use of dopamine antagonists, usually antipsychotics. "

"Tardive dyskinesia is characterized by repetitive, involuntary, purposeless tics and spasms. Features of the disorder may include grimacing, tongue protrusion, lip smacking, puckering and pursing of the lips, and rapid eye blinking."

I wonder if he was indeed given anti-Psychotic drugs if that could effect his penmanship.

[offlinejnovitz]

While its possible the original letter is not genuine, there is no doubt that the distinctive writing from the BDC file in Berlin is identical with the writing reproduced in Volume 8 of his time in Tel Aviv.

I doubt that he can have taken drugs that would have affected him mentally. He gave hours upon hours of pre-trial prepatory interviews - no you have a right to remain silent anything you may say could be taken down and used against you. He couldnt shut up.

The smuggling through customs part is unbelievable to me. No matter how drugged you are, who is going to let themselves go through police passport checks without saying "oy, im being kidnapped". And who would risk doing it?

Perhaps the reason Eichmann knew so much about Jewish culture was he like Jews, and this was useful and tolerated by SS higher-ups. He certainly like Jewish music.