Eichmann reportedly protected 800 Jews

BERLIN, March 16 (UPI) -- A Nazi leader known as the Holocaust's diabolical mastermind rescued about 800 Jews during World War II, a report said.

Adolf Eichmann, one of German leader Adolf Hitler's top aides, had secretly kept about 800 Jews in a converted Berlin hospital where they remained until found by Russian soldiers, The Sunday Times of London reported.

The newspaper reported many of those housed were collaborators, spies or spouses of non-Jewish influential Germans.

The Nazis reportedly allowed the hospital to continue operating under the management of a Jewish doctor and under the supervision of a Gestapo officer who reported directly to Eichmann.

The newspaper said Eichmann's motivation to keep the hospital open was to deceive Berliners about the fate that awaited many Jews.

"With a Jewish hospital still functioning, and Jewish doctors and nurses still caring for the sick, it was possible to spread the lie that Hitler could not possibly intend to exterminate the German Jews," The Times report said.

Eichmann was hanged by Israelis in 1962 after being convicted of crimes against humanity.

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