Adolf Eichmann - Nazi Party and SS

Nazi Party and SS

On the advice of family friend Ernst Kaltenbrunner, Eichmann joined the Austrian branch of the Nazi Party (NSDAP), member number 889,895—and the Schutzstaffel (SS)—membership number 45,326. He enlisted on April 1, 1932, as an SS-Anwärter (candidate). He was accepted as a full SS member that November, appointed an SS-Mann (man).

For the next year, Eichmann was a member of the Allgemeine SS (General SS) and served in a mustering formation operating from Salzburg while continuing in his position at Vacuum Oil. In 1933, when the Nazis came to power, Eichmann returned to Germany and submitted an application to join an active duty SS regiment. He was accepted, and in November 1933, promoted to SS-Scharführer (Squad Leader, equivalent to corporal). Eichmann was assigned to the administrative staff of Dachau concentration camp.

By 1934, Eichmann requested transfer to the Sicherheitsdienst (SD: Security Service) of the SS, to escape the "monotony" of military training in SS-Standarte Deutschland at Dachau. Eichmann was accepted into the SD and assigned to the sub-office on Freemasons, organizing seized ritual objects for a proposed museum. After about six months, Eichmann had a meeting with Leopold von Mildenstein, a fellow Austrian, and was invited to join Mildenstein's Jewish Department, or Section II/112, of the SD at its Berlin headquarters. He later came to see this as his "big break". Eichmann's transfer was granted in November 1934. In 1935, he was promoted to SS-Hauptscharführer (Head Squad Leader) and later commissioned as an SS-Untersturmführer (second lieutenant) in 1937.

In 1937, Eichmann travelled to the British Mandate of Palestine with his superior Herbert Hagen (de) to assess the possibilities of massive Jewish emigration from Germany to Palestine. They landed in Haifa using forged press credentials, and spent two days there. They next visited Cairo, where they met Feival Polkes, an agent of the Haganah, with whom they were unable to strike a deal of any kind. Eichmann and Hagen were unable to re-enter Palestine when the British authorities refused to give them the appropriate visas.

In 1938, Eichmann was assigned to Austria to help organise SS security forces in Vienna after the Anschluss of Austria with Germany. Through this effort, Eichmann was promoted to SS-Obersturmführer (first lieutenant) and by the end of 1938, was selected by the SS leadership to form the Central Office for Jewish Emigration. He served as an "expert on Jewish matters" for the Third Reich, overseeing the concentration camps, the expropriation of Jewish property, and the deportation of Jews to ghettos and death camps. He played a major role in implementing the Final Solution.