After 60 years BND Eichmann files still under lock and key (Re initiated 2020)
After the end of National Socialism, SS-Obersturmbannführer, Adolf Eichmann, disappeared and went to Argentina in 1950. He was detained there in 1960, subsequently tried, sentenced to death and executed in Israel. Numerous details of Eichmann’s arrest are still unclear.
My 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. I have therefore again applied for file inspection. My lawyer argues 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.
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.
About the legal battle for the Eichmann files in my film “Ewig Geheim“.and "the fight for the files" (2017)