Eichmann was born on March 19, 1906 near Cologne, Germany, into a middle class Protestant family. His family moved to Austria following the death of young Adolf's mother. He spent his youth in Linz, Austria, which had also been Hitler's home town. As a boy, Eichmann was teased about his looks and dark complexion and was nicknamed "the little Jew" by classmates. In 1932 at age 26 he joined the growing Austrian Nazi Party at the suggestion of his friend Ernst Kaltenbrunner. Eichmann then became a member of the SS and in 1934 he served as an SS corporal at Dachau concentration camp. In September 1934 Eichmann found relief from the monotony of that assignment by getting a job in Heydrich's SD, the powerful SS security service. He assumed the leading role in coordinating the deportation of Jews from every corner of Europe to existing ghettos in occupied Poland and to newly constructed gas chambers at places such as Sobibor, Chelmno, Treblinka and Auschwitz-Birkenau. At Birkenau the gas chamber disguised as a shower room could accommodate 2000 people at a time.

Following the surrender of Nazi Germany in May of 1945, Eichmann was arrested and confined to an American internment camp but managed to escape because his name was not yet well known. In 1950, with the help of the SS underground organisation, he fled to Argentina and lived there under the assumed name of Ricardo Klement for ten years until Israeli Mossad agents abducted him on May 11, 1960.

Eichmann went on trial in Jerusalem for crimes against the Jewish people, crimes against humanity and war crimes. During the four months of the trial over 100 witnesses testified against him. Eichmann took the stand and used the defense that he was just obeying orders. "Why me," he asked. "Why not the local policemen, thousands of them? They would have been shot if they had refused to round up the Jews for the death camps. Why not hang them for not wanting to be shot? Why me? Everybody killed the Jews."