Gideon Hausner | |
---|---|
Date of birth | 26 September 1915 |
Place of birth | Lemberg, Austria-Hungary |
Date of death | 15 November 1990 | (aged 75)
Knessets | 6, 7, 8, 9 |
Faction represented in Knesset | |
1965–1974 | Independent Liberals |
1977–1981 | Independent Liberals |
Ministerial roles | |
1974–1977 | Minister without Portfolio |
Other roles | |
1960–1963 | Attorney General |
Gideon Hausner (Hebrew: גדעון האוזנר, 26 September 1915 – 15 November 1990) was an Israeli jurist and politician. Between 1960 and 1963 he served as Attorney General, and was later elected to the Knesset and served in the cabinet.
Hausner is most widely known for heading the team of prosecutors at the war crimes trial of Adolf Eichmann in Jerusalem in 1961. Hausner is generally credited with exposing the Holocaust to the world in bold cross-examinations of Eichmann. His judicial skill also set the precedent that the defense "I was only following orders" is not valid if such orders are wholly criminal and illegal. The prosecution succeeded in proving Eichmann's guilt, and Eichmann was found guilty on all charges, including crimes against humanity and crimes against the Jewish people. He was sentenced to death.
Hausner was born in Lemberg, the then capital of the Kingdom of Galicia and Lodomeria, a province of Austria-Hungary, to Polish-Jewish economist and Zionist Bernard Hausner. He immigrated to Mandatory Palestine from Poland in 1927, when his father took the post of Economic Advisor to the Polish Government first in Haifa and later in Tel-Aviv. Hausner attended high school in Tel Aviv before studying philosophy at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem and then law at the Jerusalem Law School.