When Mossad agents captured Adolf Eichmann in Argentina sixty-four years ago, the West German government didn’t take the news well. Konrad Adenauer had one concern: the potential damage it would do to Germany’s reputation.

At a press conference before the trial in Jerusalem started, the chancellor stated that «of course» he was concerned that the public proceedings would result in a «judgement about us Germans as a whole.» He argued that «here in Germany, National Socialist Germans committed the exact same crimes against other Germans that Eichmann perpetrated against the Jews.» Moreover, he expounded that, «the overwhelming majority of people gladly helped Jewish fellow citizens whenever they could.» In short, nobody helped Europe’s Jews more than the Germans, who were themselves victims of National Socialism.

Adenauer had good reason to be concerned. Under his chancellorship, the process of denazification had largely been abandoned. Most former Nazis had not fled to South America like Eichmann, but were living undisturbed amidst the middle class of the Federal Republic of Germany. One among them was Hans Globke, Adenauer’s chief of staff and an erstwhile Nazi lawyer who helped give the Nuremberg Laws the imprimatur of legality.

A few months after Adenauer’s press conference, David Ben-Gurion gave an interview to a German newspaper in which he telegraphed that the German government need not be worried. «My views on contemporary Germany have not changed,» he said. «Nazi Germany no longer exists … The development of our relations with contemporary Germany depends upon the intentions and policies of the German government. For our part, we are prepared to have a close, normal relationship and to work together to the fullest extent.»