<p><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Schutzstaffel" class="extiw" title="w:Schutzstaffel">SS</a>-<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Obersturmbannf%C3%BChrer" class="extiw" title="w:Obersturmbannführer">Obersturmbannführer</a> <a href="//commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Adolf_Eichmann" title="Adolf Eichmann">Adolf Eichmann</a> (1906–1962), head of <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reich_Main_Security_Office" class="extiw" title="w:Reich Main Security Office">Reichssicherheitshauptamt</a> (RSHA, Reich Security Central Office) Department IV B4 (Jewish affairs), who organized the deportation of Jews to the <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Auschwitz_concentration_camp" class="extiw" title="w:Auschwitz concentration camp">Auschwitz concentration camp</a> in German-occupied Poland during the Holocaust. Taken in or around 1942, this appears to have been Eichmann's official RSHA ID photograph. <a href="//commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Yad_Vashem" title="Yad Vashem">Yad Vashem</a> describes the image as "Eichmann, RSHA (Reich Central Security Office), 1942, Collection Archive, Yad Vashem Archives." See <a rel="nofollow" class="external text" href="https://web.archive.org/web/20140802101257/http://www.yadvashem.org/yv/en/education/interviews/images/goldman_gilad4b.jpg">this version</a> with a signature; the holes from the hole punch are visible.
</p><p>The image shows Eichmann in his Obersturmbannführer (lieutenant colonel) uniform, with four silver pips and a stripe on the left collar. He became Obersturmbannführer on 9 November 1941.<sup id="cite_ref-1" class="reference"><a href="#cite_note-1">[1]</a></sup></p><p><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_Cesarani" class="extiw" title="w:David Cesarani">David Cesarani</a> writes: "The much used official photograph of the smiling young SS officer with filmstar looks who deported millions of Jews to the death camps seems to personify all the perpetrators of Nazi genocide. The ubiquity of this image is equalled by that of Eichmann at his trial in Jerusalem in 1961, sitting or standing inside a bulletproof glass booth".<sup id="cite_ref-2" class="reference"><a href="#cite_note-2">[2]</a></sup></p><p>It is not known where the photograph was taken. After the <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wannsee_Conference" class="extiw" title="w:Wannsee Conference">Wannsee Conference</a> in January 1942, Eichmann travelled extensively, setting up offices in countries from which Jews were being deported. The birth of his children mirrored this movement: his first son was born in Berlin, Germany, in 1936; his second in Vienna, Austria, in 1940; and his third in Prague, Czechoslovakia (now the Czech Republic), in 1942, where he and his wife had rented a home since 1939 and which he regarded as his official residence. He would regularly return to Berlin.<sup id="cite_ref-Stangneth_3-0" class="reference"><a href="#cite_note-Stangneth-3">[3]</a></sup> (His fourth son was born in Buenos Aires, Argentina, in 1955.)
</p>
Bettina Stangneth writes that, from June 1942, when <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reinhard_Heydrich" class="extiw" title="w:Reinhard Heydrich">Reinhard Heydrich</a>, head of the RSHA, was assassinated in Prague, Eichmann "began ensuring that no one took his photograph".<sup id="cite_ref-4" class="reference"><a href="#cite_note-4">[4]</a></sup> Describing the security measures Eichmann took because he "lived in constant fear of assassination", <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dieter_Wisliceny" class="extiw" title="w:Dieter Wisliceny">Dieter Wisliceny</a>, another SS officer, wrote in a statement in 1946: "The same caution made him camera-shy. Whenever he needed photographs for identification papers, he had them done by the Gestapo Photographic Laboratory. I myself took two pictures of Eichmann, the first in 1937 and the second in 1944, showing Eichmann in uniform. It was taken in Hungary, and even there Eichmann made me give him the negative. The pictures used to be in my apartment in Vienna 18, Buchleitengasse 8."<sup id="cite_ref-5" class="reference"><a href="#cite_note-5">[5]</a></sup>
Author and location unknown.<div class="paragraphbreak" style="margin-top:0.5em"></div>
Bettina Stangneth's caption for the image says: "Unknown photographer, undated (1941), AKG Images, 4217270".<sup id="cite_ref-Stangneth_3-1" class="reference"><a href="#cite_note-Stangneth-3">[3]</a></sup> The <a rel="nofollow" class="external text" href="https://www.bsb-muenchen.de/en/">Bayerische Staatsbibliothek</a> (Bavarian State Library) website used to attribute the image to <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heinrich_Hoffmann_(photographer)" class="extiw" title="w:Heinrich Hoffmann (photographer)">Heinrich Hoffmann</a> (1885–1957) ("image: hoff-895; negative: Hoffmann 8841"), a German photographer who was known as Hitler's personal photographer. The library obtained the negative and a copy of the image as part of a collection purchased from Hoffmann's son in 1993. Following an inquiry from a Wikipedian in 2014, the library checked the negative and confirmed "with certainty" that this is not one of Hoffmann's images. His negatives were made of glass and had identifying numbers etched onto them. The library said they cannot determine the authorship of the Eichmann negative.
Immediate source <a rel="nofollow" class="external text" href="https://www.blic.rs/vesti/svet/bild-nemacka-sluzba-znala-da-se-ajhman-krio-u-argentini/518qftc">Blic.rs</a>. Also <a rel="nofollow" class="external text" href="http://www.yadvashem.org/yv/en/exhibitions/eichmann/images/eichmann/01.jpg">Yad Vashem</a> and <a rel="nofollow" class="external text" href="http://www.ushmm.org/wlc/en/article.php?ModuleId=10007412">United States Holocaust Memorial Museum</a>. The latter credits DIZ Muenchen GMBH, <a rel="nofollow" class="external text" href="https://www.sz-photo.de/?16607724099100603390&amp;EVENT=POPUP&amp;WINDOW=WGWINe4704873e01b6fac8cb1c19fdf7143a9&amp;AJXUID=0.4155887990549302&amp;MEDIANUMBER=00126367">Sueddeutscher Verlag Bilderdienst</a>. Image ID: 00126367.