Germany: Spiegel Affair and Eichmann Trial
In 1962 the Spiegel affair happened. The German magazine "Der Spiegel" published an article about a NATO exercise under the name "Bedingt abwehrbereit" ("Partially Ready to Defend"). The article mentioned details about the performance of the Western German army and the assessment of a NATO commander that found the West German forces to be only partially ready to defend the country.
This was a very big issue because if the Bundeswehr wasn't able to defend Western Germany against the Warsaw Pact with conventional means then this meant that nuclear weapons would be necessary in the case of an attack. Or in other words, the Bundeswehr wasn't an efficient deterrent against a conventional attack. Further, if they weren't a serious deterrent then the risk for war would increase because there'd be an "opportunity" for the Warsaw Pact.
Western Germanys minister of defence Franz Josef Strauß (and chancellor Adenauer as well) wanted to have nuclear weapons for the Bundeswehr for many years now. The German public was extremely against this because if the Bundeswehr was having nuclear weapons (even (or rather especially) small ones) then a war on German soil would turn into a nuclear war. Germany would become a battlefield between both blocks and subsequently a nuclear wasteland. People were tired of war and wanted to prevent the next one.
Despite protests the nuclear armament of the Bundeswehr was decided. There were going to be nuclear weapons on German soil yet still in the posession of US forces. In the case of war German forces would deliver those weapons. German planes could carry small nuclear bombs to their target.
The Spiegel affair touched all those things again. Despite the official position the Western German forces were not strong enough to defend an attack. The Spiegel was able to gain those internal informations from the leadership of the Bundeswehr. One German Oberst (=colonel) was their informant or in other words, their whistleblower.
The German government reacted drastically to this publication. They accused the Spiegel of treason and raided its offices. Thousands of documents were confiscated and a number of reporters were being arrested. The Spiegel was a thorn in the side of minister of defence Strauß for quite some time now and some saw this as an opportunity to silence an unconvenient voice.
Yet there was a huge outcry of the German public. The Germans had not forgotten the years of censorship and persecution of the press under the Nazis. There was a huge wave of solidarity. Other news magazines shared their offices with the remaining free Spiegel reporters who were "homeless" for the moment. There were protests and riots on the streets.
The Western German state was very young but people already saw their freedom of press threatened. The whole affair grew bigger and bigger. It was revealed that Strauß lied and committed illegal acts to have reporters arrested. The government was in a crisis. Strauß had to resign as a minister of defense.
The charges against the Spiegel reporters were dropped. German courts refused to open a trial. Because of what happened the Federal Constitutional Court of Germany (like the US supreme court) issued a groundbreaking ruling in 1966 that laid down the basics of the freedom of the press for decades to come.
This affair was extremely important in the history of (Western) Germany. The German public had shown that they would defend their new democratic values. It was a step away from the old "Obrigkeitsstaat" (authoritarian state) to a modern democracy.
Another important event happened in 1962. In Israel a former SS officer named Adolf Eichmann was on trial for his crimes during WWII. After the war he managed to escape to South America using the "ratlines", a shady network that was helping Nazis to flee. Eichmann felt very safe in Argentinia, met other former Nazis and even gave interviews to journalists. He wanted to sell parts of his memories to magazines.
Yet Israeli secret services were still pursuing Nazi war criminals. Eventually the Mossad found him, kidnapped him and brought him to Israel to be on trial. This was a very significant development for Israel as well. Until this point the Israeli society didn't really solve their terrifying past. There was a very high number of people who experienced unimaginable horrors during WWII and the Holocaust. Many people lost their whole families. But there was almost no open discussion about it. People were busy building up their new state, there was new violence to deal with. Holocaust survivors didn't want to talk about what they saw. They didn't want to burden their families and their children with their terrible memories. Yet this didn't solve those problems, it just buried them.
The Eichmann trial was a big change in this. It was like a stone thrown into a calm lake. The Eichmann trial was being published arond the world, there was no way to "avoid" this or play it down. Suddenly more people were ready to talk about what they experienced during WWII.
Witnesses on the trial reported about what they experienced in concentration camps. 16 years after the end of WWII the whole world learned in detail again what happened during the Holocaust. Eichmann wasn't somebody who personally shot dozens of jews. He was a bureaucrat, he organized the Holocaust by sitting at his desk. A new term came up called "desk murderer". Without getting blood on his own hands he killed a huge number of people. Eichmann became a symbol of the industrialized, organized and cold mass murder by the Nazis.
Eventually Eichmann was convicted and sentenced to death.
The trial was closely followed by the Western German society as well. Many schools studied the events. This contributed to students questioning the role of their parents during WWII and the Holocaust and would later culminate in the student protests of 1968.
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