Lothar Hermann

Lothar Hermann was a blind German Jewish refugee in Argentina whose suspicion that a man living under the name Ricardo Klement was Adolf Eichmann helped set the pursuit of the Nazi official in motion. His discovery came through his daughter’s former boyfriend, but the investigation it prompted was slow, politically fraught, and ultimately entangled Hermann himself in a false accusation.

Identity and Discovery

Hermann lived in Argentina, where he became convinced that he had tracked down Eichmann, then working in a Buenos Aires warehouse for Mercedes Benz. The clue came from his daughter’s relationship with Nick Eichmann. Nick often praised his father’s prowess during the war and regretted that Germany had not annihilated all the Jews. Those remarks led Hermann to suspect that the young man’s father was not merely a former soldier but the fugitive responsible for the extermination of European Jews.

From Suspicion to Investigation

In 1957, Hermann wrote to Fritz Bauer, chief public prosecutor in Hesse. Bauer chose not to work through intelligence agencies or the German embassy in Buenos Aires, which he regarded as compromised by former Nazis; instead, he passed the information quietly to Mossad. An initial Israeli investigation in Argentina proved inconclusive, and Mossad halted it, in part because Hermann was asking for too much money. The suspicion was also difficult for investigators to accept: Eichmann’s supposed home was described as a miserable suburban dwelling, an image at odds with the expected refuge of a leading Nazi fugitive.

Bauer nevertheless believed Hermann and sought independent corroboration. A second source confirmed that Ricardo Klement was Adolf Eichmann. This confirmation changed the pursuit from an uncertain lead into an actionable identification. In December 1959, the decision was made to kidnap Eichmann.

Consequences and Reversal

The Eichmann case brought international attention to the hunt for Nazi war criminals in South America. After Eichmann’s capture, journalists arrived in Buenos Aires, and Argentina faced pressure to prove that it was not a haven for Nazis. On June 20, a warrant was issued for Josef Mengele’s arrest; the account says that the following year it would lead to the capture of Hermann, wrongly accused of being the Auschwitz doctor. The reversal is stark: the refugee whose information helped identify one fugitive Nazi became the target of a mistaken identification himself.

Narrative Significance

Hermann’s part in the story rests on a chain of inference rather than a dramatic confrontation: a daughter’s courtship, a young man’s admiration for his father, and a refugee’s recognition of what those boasts implied. The chain was strong enough to reach Bauer and, after further corroboration, Mossad, yet the initial failure and the later false accusation show how uncertain and hazardous the pursuit remained. Hermann’s contribution was consequential, but the narrative does not turn him into an uncomplicated investigator or depict the authorities’ search as infallible.