Early influences
Adolf Eichmann was born in 1906 in Solingen, a small industrial city in the Rhineland. His father was an accountant with a local power company, but was assigned to a superior posting in Linz, Austria, in 1913. Eichmann and his five siblings followed. In 1916 his mother died and his father quickly remarried. Eichmann senior was an active member of the Evangelical Church and his son remained in the faith until 1937, long after most SS men broke with religion.
Eichmann was adept at learning practical skills on the job, under the tutelage of seniors he respected.
Eichmann was very much under his father's influence, and older male authority figures would continue to mould his life. Nevertheless, he did not work hard or do well at school and left without any qualifications. His father, who had meanwhile started an oil-extraction business, gave him a job. Eichmann worked on the surface and in underground oil-shale tunnels before moving to an apprenticeship with an electrical engineering firm. In 1927 his father used family contacts to get him a job with another oil company.
Little attention has been paid to Eichmann's work experience, but it had a significant bearing on his career in the SS. Eichmann was adept at learning practical skills on the job, under the tutelage of seniors he respected. While he continued to live at home, he ranged over Upper Austria selling oil products, locating sites for petrol stations, and setting them up. He also arranged kerosene deliveries. On Saturday he conscientiously completed his paperwork and reported to his superiors.
Eichmann did well and was transferred to the Salzburg district. But by 1933 he had tired of the job and, anyway, was laid off. He had learned a lot, though: how to identify prime sites at communication junctions, how to timetable and organise deliveries, how to sell a product and persuade people to do your bidding. After he was made redundant he went north to Germany, partly in search of work but mainly in fulfilment of a new passion: politics.
Drawn to the Nazis
Photograph showing the young Adolf Eichmann The young Adolf Eichmann © During his trial he pretended to be apolitical, but Eichmann came from a strongly German nationalist family. Like many Germans his father lost his wealth during the post-war economic crisis and had the embittering experience of starting all over again. He enrolled his son in the Wandervogel youth movement which, while ostensibly apolitical, was strongly imbued with völkisch ideas about the Heimat (homeland). Later, Eichmann joined the Linz branch of the Heimschutz, a right wing paramilitary association of army veterans. He considered joining a Masonic club that recommended itself to him because it excluded Jews.
Eichmann claimed that he joined the SD by error, but it suited his talents.
Instead, in April 1932, he joined the Nazi party. At the instigation of the local gauleiter, who knew his family, he attended a Nazi rally and was approached by an SS man called Ernst Kaltenbrunner, whose father had business dealings with Eichmann senior. Kaltenbrunner must have known that Eichmann was ripe for the party because he told him: 'You belong to us'. Eichmann combined commerce with activism in the Austrian SS until 1933, when the party was outlawed and Kaltenbrunner arranged for him to go to Germany. He spent some time at an SS training centre and with an exiled Austrian SS unit before he was posted to Dachau concentration camp. From there he applied to join the SD, the Nazi Party Security Service, and was accepted for work at one of its Berlin branches.
Eichmann claimed that he joined the SD by error, but it suited his talents. He worked as a clerk in the section that monitored Freemasons before he was spotted by the head of the Jewish section of the SD, Edler von Mildenstein, who became his next 'mentor'.
Adolf Eichmann was born in 1906 in Solingen, a small industrial city in the Rhineland. His father was an accountant with a local power company, but was assigned to a superior posting in Linz, Austria, in 1913. Eichmann and his five siblings followed. In 1916 his mother died and his father quickly remarried. Eichmann senior was an active member of the Evangelical Church and his son remained in the faith until 1937, long after most SS men broke with religion.
Eichmann was adept at learning practical skills on the job, under the tutelage of seniors he respected.
Eichmann was very much under his father's influence, and older male authority figures would continue to mould his life. Nevertheless, he did not work hard or do well at school and left without any qualifications. His father, who had meanwhile started an oil-extraction business, gave him a job. Eichmann worked on the surface and in underground oil-shale tunnels before moving to an apprenticeship with an electrical engineering firm. In 1927 his father used family contacts to get him a job with another oil company.
Little attention has been paid to Eichmann's work experience, but it had a significant bearing on his career in the SS. Eichmann was adept at learning practical skills on the job, under the tutelage of seniors he respected. While he continued to live at home, he ranged over Upper Austria selling oil products, locating sites for petrol stations, and setting them up. He also arranged kerosene deliveries. On Saturday he conscientiously completed his paperwork and reported to his superiors.
Eichmann did well and was transferred to the Salzburg district. But by 1933 he had tired of the job and, anyway, was laid off. He had learned a lot, though: how to identify prime sites at communication junctions, how to timetable and organise deliveries, how to sell a product and persuade people to do your bidding. After he was made redundant he went north to Germany, partly in search of work but mainly in fulfilment of a new passion: politics.
Drawn to the Nazis
Photograph showing the young Adolf Eichmann The young Adolf Eichmann © During his trial he pretended to be apolitical, but Eichmann came from a strongly German nationalist family. Like many Germans his father lost his wealth during the post-war economic crisis and had the embittering experience of starting all over again. He enrolled his son in the Wandervogel youth movement which, while ostensibly apolitical, was strongly imbued with völkisch ideas about the Heimat (homeland). Later, Eichmann joined the Linz branch of the Heimschutz, a right wing paramilitary association of army veterans. He considered joining a Masonic club that recommended itself to him because it excluded Jews.
Eichmann claimed that he joined the SD by error, but it suited his talents.
Instead, in April 1932, he joined the Nazi party. At the instigation of the local gauleiter, who knew his family, he attended a Nazi rally and was approached by an SS man called Ernst Kaltenbrunner, whose father had business dealings with Eichmann senior. Kaltenbrunner must have known that Eichmann was ripe for the party because he told him: 'You belong to us'. Eichmann combined commerce with activism in the Austrian SS until 1933, when the party was outlawed and Kaltenbrunner arranged for him to go to Germany. He spent some time at an SS training centre and with an exiled Austrian SS unit before he was posted to Dachau concentration camp. From there he applied to join the SD, the Nazi Party Security Service, and was accepted for work at one of its Berlin branches.
Eichmann claimed that he joined the SD by error, but it suited his talents. He worked as a clerk in the section that monitored Freemasons before he was spotted by the head of the Jewish section of the SD, Edler von Mildenstein, who became his next 'mentor'.