After 15 years on the run, justice finally caught up with Adolf Eichmann on May 11, 1960. The Nazi war criminal -- who organized the deportation of millions of Jews to death camps in German-occupied Poland -- was kidnapped outside his Buenos Aires home by Mossad agents and brought to trial in Israel. He was found guilty of crimes against humanity and hanged in 1962.
But Eichmann's capture needn't have been so long in the making. German newspaper Bild this weekend published a secret service document that revealed West German intelligence officials knew about his Argentine hideout as early as 1952. It appears as though the agency chose not to act on the information.
A German newspaper published a secret service document showing that intelligence officials knew about Adolf Eichmann's hideout as early as 1952.
The typewritten file card obtained by Bild notes that Eichmann was living in the Argentine capital under the alias Clemens. "SS colonel Eichmann is not to be found in Egypt but is residing in Argentina under the fake name Clemens," it read. "Eichmann's address is known to the editor of the German newspaper 'Der Weg' in Argentina." (German weekly Der Spiegel reported that Eichmann had in fact adopted the pseudonym Ricardo Klement.)
Argentine journalist Uki Goni -- author of "The Real Odessa," which chronicles the postwar flight of Nazi criminals to South America -- told AOL News that he wasn't surprised West German agents had discovered Eichmann's whereabouts by 1952.
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