As SS-Obersturmbannführer, Adolf Eichmann was one of the main organizers of the German extermination policy against the European Jews (Shoah). After the end of National Socialism, he disappeared and went to Argentina in 1950. He was abducted from there in 1960 and subsequently tried, sentenced to death and executed in Israel.

2008: First lawsuit partially successful

Numerous details of Eichmann’s abduction are still unclear. Our client, the journalist Dr. Gaby Weber, has been researching the subject for many years. Her first lawsuit for access to the files of the Foreign Intelligence Service (Bundesnachrichtendienst) was partially successful in 2011. The Federal Administrative Court decided that the Foreign Intelligence Service must present several files (Case No. 20 F 22.10, 7 A 6.08).

However, numerous other documents are still under lock and key. We have therefore again applied for file inspection on behalf of our client and argue that in the meantime even the 60-year protection period according to § 11 para. 3 Federal Archives Act has expired. Our application was partially successful. The Federal Intelligence Service has in the meantime submitted some file components which the Federal Administrative Court had still considered to be subject to secrecy in 2012. However, many documents are still being refused or only offered in blacked out form.

New lawsuit after expiry of the protection period

Therefore, we have again filed a lawsuit with the Federal Administrative Court and demand access to the complete and unblackened files. 60 years after the documents were created, the Federal Intelligence Service can no longer invoke the protection of secret service methods or its relationship with foreign secret services to impede historical investigation.

The lawsuit is intended as a supplement to the proceedings we are conducting against the domestic intelligence service (Bundesamt für Verfassungsschutz) on behalf of the historian Dr. Fabien Théofilakis. He demands that the domestic secret service grant him access to the existing files on Adolf Eichmann.

Our client Dr. Gaby Weber reports on her research and the legal battle for the Eichmann files in her film “Ewig Geheim“.