Original subtitles

i thought i'm looking at a nazi war

criminal this is incredible priebke had

been one of the most important gestapo

officers in rome during the war

from all reports he had a certain

brutality and efficiency about him this

guy is right up there with mengele

with eichmann

what i felt in front of that man it was

hate

we were hoping that we could confront a

couple of nazis in a german town in the

andes i've interviewed a lot of people

who have committed crimes and they

usually run when they see someone like

me

[Music]

argentina

for half a century a haven for nazi war

criminals

until now

in a historic move the government opens

its post-war archives to the world

one day in early 1994 at our program

primetime live someone said why don't we

do the story of how nazi war criminals

came to argentina after world war ii

the story will leave one of america's

most celebrated television news teams to

the scoop of a lifetime

to one of the last remaining

high-ranking nazis still at large

ss captain eric prieble

with greater liberalization of the

argentine administration the old junta

days had gone new files were emerging

suggested that a lot of nazis had indeed

fled to south america and argentina

the stories that have been coming out at

the time were that

the argentine government had been hiding

something

and i thought okay well can i go down

there and find the nazi who's still

alive perhaps

abc news producer harry phillips is

assigned the story

i went down to buenos aires to poke

through archives

i spent hours and hours by myself going

through files

and sure enough i found a lot of nazis

who we knew had traveled to argentina

adolf eichmann joseph mengele

the next task was to determine who was

still a war criminal whose name i didn't

have who might still be in the file

we knew from the simon wiesenthal center

that there was a man in argentina he

called himself juan mauler but we

suspected very strongly that he was a

nazi named reynard cops who we knew was

a nazi because there were records of him

all i needed to do was confirm that juan

mauler was reiner cops

thanks to the simon wiesenthal center we

knew that juan muller was in veriloche

living in hiding deep in the andes in

this small german town

the simon wiesenthal center is a jewish

human rights organization

what neither they nor abc know is that

reinhard cops aka one mauler will lead

them to a much bigger fish

the number two man in rome's gestapo

eric priepka

i worked with a woman in buenos aires

named alilah herbst i hired her as a

translator and a fixer and to do

research with me

and so we began asking questions

harry called me and asked me to go down

to bariloche to get in touch with a guy

called juan maler

we knew that cops was in berloche and we

also knew that baroloce was a haven for

for german migrants

they built this german town in the andes

baroloci is

essentially

an austrian german alpine resort in

argentina

for many germans and austrians barolo

she was a real home from home the lakes

were there the mountains were there the

germans were there

and a lot of them were nazis

reinhard cops and various other ss men

settled in body legend for these these

austrian and german people they felt

like they were in bavaria or in the alps

somewhere they lived very openly they

went to the opera they went to the cafes

they had their restaurants for them was

like a home away from home

there were probably some covert toasts

to hitler's birthday there i don't think

it was an out and out sort of fourth

reich but i think certainly it was a

place where a lot of former nazis lived

in bariloche i was quite

afraid of asking who he was

i knew that he had a small hotel and i

called there and said if i could talk to

mr juan male

and they said he rented this hotel to us

and they wouldn't give any sort of

information

and then

i began to try to see where i could get

this guy so i phoned his house

and a german woman told me we don't know

when he's coming back

so i said well this is going to be a

hard work

i called harry and said we don't know

when he's coming back

after the war captain reinhard cox fled

to argentina

but not before helping thousands of his

fellow nazis escape the allies

reinhardt cops was the spy

he was the man going around handing out

landing permits to argentina to his

fellow nazis

the rat line became the term used by the

nazis who were you know running off the

sinking ship of the third rife seeking

safety

the red line ran from germany

into either austria or switzerland

from there to italy where they boarded

ships to come to south america

from his office in rome cops handled

thousands of nazis on the run before

long he orchestrated his own escape to

baraloche argentina

[Music]

so i'm in contact with delela

a lot she stayed in vera lochi while i

had returned to the u.s for a time

i remember

asking delela to check names out all the

time you know with the local community

and so forth

i was on my own there

and absolutely bored

so i went down and asked somebody at the

hotel if they could give me a list

of books just to read and know the story

of body lodge

and between those books were one called

the painter of the argentine switzerland

maybe the book a local history can shed

light on the nazi fugitives who've made

this area home

i went to the

most important bookstore in bariloche

i asked the man and he said it

disappeared

so i went to several bookstores at night

and it was exactly the same answer

[Music]

the next morning it was a beautiful day

so i went down walking

[Music]

and there was a little kiosk

and there it was

i couldn't believe that

[Music]

and i found at the beginning the story

of cops

and three pages later there was a story

of a man called eric pripke

it was very shocking for me

had been

one of the most important gestapo

officers in rome during the war from all

reports he was very very good at hunting

down enemies of the state in italy

and he had a certain brutality and

efficiency about him

had wide contacts with the italian

fascist you know network in italy with

priests in the catholic church

when the third reich collapsed in 1945

eric priebke went on the run

so preepkin knew he had to leave italy

there was an active network of priests

who were working

helping nazis escape

the system for acquiring false documents

is already in place

in 1948 following the same rat line as

reinhard cops eric priebke and his

family escaped to buenos aires

50 years he has alluded justice but now

a team of journalists has stumbled onto

his trail

every day we're on the phone talking

about names names names and finally

delilah said to me i think you might be

interested in a guy named eric pribke

and i said is that name on our list she

said no that name's not on our list but

i i found his name

in a bookstore

and i don't know if it's true but this

thesis talks about him being involved in

some massacre in europe

at first

i was a little skeptical but after the

second or third conversation we had on

this i thought you know what this this

sounds really promising

but is the guy alive she said i don't

know

i said well find a phone book

so i went

and wanted to see if i could get his uh

his telephone number

and i just got you know a directory

and sure enough

i brought the phone book home because in

the phone book she found him under his

own name it was

his name eric

his address and his phone number

eric pribke except he had made one

change instead of the h at the end of

eric he was listed as e-r-i-c-o

erico pribke it had to be the same guy

so i called and a german woman again got

me on the phone and said hold on a

second

and when he came to her phone and said

hello i got afraid and hanged

i couldn't you know react

he was alive and perhaps even a war

criminal living in hiding deep in the

andes in this small german town it

really was a heart-stopping moment

the abc news team now hopes to expose

not one but two nazis

well we knew we were going to do a large

story we had to do a total workout of

research

on eric pribkin just to see if indeed

this man was a war criminal

argentina had admitted

a huge number of nazis after world war

ii

the exact number no one knows to this

date

producer harry phillips returns to

verology

to stay under the radar his team needs a

cover story

delilah herbst came in

as a small businesswoman from buenos

aires who was interested in perhaps

moving to barolote and looking at

business prospects

i was obviously going to be a an

american or a canadian tourist that's

the only thing i could do and pull off

and i went out as a guy who was in town

to do some fly fishing

ultimately i want to prove that juan

mahler is rendered cops so i went to his

house

and i just kind of surveyed the area

myself

i did not knock on the door i wanted to

just watch him

but i didn't see him

after a few days in baroloci it became

apparent to me

that i might not see juan waller

he hadn't come out of his house if he

was in there he hadn't gone to his

business i didn't know for sure if he

was in town

phillips worries priepka may have left

town as well

he digs deeper into his past

we had to find out if the allegations

against pribca were true so we had to do

a lot of research to about his past in

nazi germany we were shocked with the

results

we discovered

records that showed that he was part of

one of the worst atrocities perhaps the

worst atrocity that occurred in the

country of italy during the war

i thought oh my god

this guy is right up there with some of

the worst nazi war criminals

by 1944

priebka was the gestapo's second in

command in rome

[Music]

as the war was going very much against

the germans there was increasing

partisan activity

and one day in the spring of 44

33 german

soldiers were blown up by a partisan

bomb

they decided to kill 10 italians for

every

nazi who died so that's 330

uh compared with 33 of the nazis that

were killed

they had 24 hours to find the required

number of people

the gestapo

turn up and take away

335

people to be executed

they should have had 330 they got 335.

they rounded up five more than they

should have some of them were jewish

some of them were children some of them

were very old men

some of them were julius [ __ ] aquino's

relatives

when the german people came

in the night a trunk stopped in front of

this house of my grandparents

and we see

in this night they were 18 persons and

they putting them away

her grandfather his sons and his son's

sons three generations are arrested

they were driven up to the audution

caves

eric prebka was the guy standing outside

the caves checking the names off one by

one

they were led into these caves

by ss men

um with their hands tied behind their

backs in groups of five

the killing began at 3 30 pm

these victims would be lined up

and the ss officer would shoot them with

one shot in the back of the neck and the

five would fall forward

they asked to kneel

and putting the

head down

he killed him only one

shot

you imagine inside this dark pit bodies

piling up you know the screams of men it

is horrible

then five more would come right behind

them and they will fall forward

priebke was there with his roster

however he did more than that

he was one of the first to set an

example by killing

two of the individuals who were killed

in that massacre

it was the most savage

vile reprisal

we had been working on this story for a

couple of months now we knew that we

were at the point where we really had to

get shooting

we were talking about privka and how we

were going to pull this off

we were hoping that we could possibly

confront a couple of nazis in a german

town in the andes where war criminals

had been living for 50 years

we want to see what he's doing today and

to see what his life was like in hiding

delilah herbst must trick the former

gestapo man into meeting her

i have to go to my room and call him

from my room alone i can't be with other

people to call him

delela herbst concocted a story about

herself being interested in opening up a

delicatessen in veriloche

by coincidence he had apparently had

some

business like that

and i told him that

i had a friend

who lived in bariloche and that my

friend told me that he was a very

intelligent businessman

i had to think about something nice to

tell him

he agreed to meet with her

on march 28 1994

dalila arrives at a cafe in berlocchi to

meet the man they think is a nazi war

criminal

and the goal was to check if pripke was

eric prepke

we brought a cameraman down to argentina

and we began to do surveillance of [ __ ]

kick

we wanted to get as much video of this

guy today as possible

we had a camera that was a full-size

videotaped camera and it was something

that could not be concealed very easily

we had to take a bit of a gamble and

expose ourselves a little bit

we were afraid that something might

happen

posing as a businesswoman an abc news

researcher waits for the man she

believes to be a war criminal

we found a location

in downtown vera loche across the street

from a restaurant where delilah herbs

set up a meeting with pripket

i had to take a coffee alone with prepk

and i had to check

that prepke was

brib cake

she was presenting herself as a possible

investor in a business in uh in verilogy

it was not easy because

they told me where i had to sit and

where he had to sit

our cameras were across the street we

were in a kind of a stairwell and we

were one floor above the street

i remember worrying that primpkin would

see us

he looked like the

most sweet a nice

grandfather with his blue eyes an

innocent

look

and i began talking about war and then i

said

you know my grandfather was born in

berlin

and his face changed berlin he said

i'm from berlin

i said wanna coincidence

and then

i asked him did you have to kill

somebody in the war

and he said no because i was an officer

in the german embassy in rome

my coffee cup you know just it was

you know just running the coffee all

over the

water moment

i am an argentine jew

what i felt in front of that man it was

hate

i wanted to run away from the place

but you know i had to stay because

i was working

i thought i'm looking at a nazi war

criminal this is incredible this man's

been living in hiding a free man for 50

years after murdering

335 innocent civilians in rome

when i wanted to say goodbye i just

wanted to shake hands and i put my

arm this way and it dragged and gave me

a kiss in my cheek and i said goodbye

it was very shocking for me very

shocking for me

[Music]

we learned about his involvement with

the local german school where he lived

the precise times at which he would go

places

very important strategic information for

us to have

and he actually made a point of saying i

am punctual

i come out of the school at 12 o'clock

noon exactly and walk home for lunch

i called new york and i said i think

i don't want to sound too certain of

myself at this point but i think we've

got a big fish here

harry phillips the producer kept

briefing me of course on his progress

and there came a time when he said i

think we're ready to go down to

argentina and he laid out what he had

and at that point we kicked into motion

a a plan to have sam donaldson come from

washington to confront eric pribke

the abc team has failed to find reinhard

cops

[Music]

they decide to go ahead with the story

anyway

hoping eric prepka won't get wind of

them and vanish too

[Music]

i thought it was very important to bring

pripkey to justice and to tell the story

of this particular nazi and what he did

sam donaldson was the host of a weekend

show in washington

we really only had a couple of days

during the week where we could have him

in

baraloche or in argentina at all for

that matter

so we had to get him to baroloj on a

private

jet it was one of those rarefied moments

where i'm putting down an american

express card to spend ten thousand

dollars for a private jet to fly deep

into the andes

we were very hot for this story we felt

that we were really on the verge of

getting something possibly very big

so we came one evening to veralochi we

stayed at some hotel in the outskirts of

town

we instructed the pilots of the aircraft

to go undercover i said you guys

disappear now for 24 hours come back and

meet us here at 3 pm tomorrow we should

be all done by then and we got to get

sam donaldson out of here

mary phillips had arranged for a van to

take us to this hotel on a lake we

stayed there until the next morning when

we started out to find the two germans

we were going to have two camera crews

at least two translators myself and sam

donaldson descending on this

quiet little town

all at once people are going to be

asking questions who are these people

why are they here

the cameras were in cases so it wasn't

as if we got off an airplane with our

cameramen holding their

cameras on their shoulders

when we checked into the hotel

i instructed the crew to tell everybody

that we were wealthy tourists i had just

been there fishing i was now bringing my

friends back

we wouldn't go out on the town we didn't

say let's go out on the town and meet a

bunch of

german citizens here in argentina and

have a beer with them

we wanted to be safe because we were

going to do something very provocative

but we also wanted to succeed in what we

were doing and so we had to talk very

carefully about what our schedule was

going to be

we knew that he would come out at noon

from his school

and we knew that we had some hours

before we would need to be there so we

dedicated the first few hours to

surveillance and staking out juan

mauler's house

even though we hadn't seen him at all we

thought we'd better spend at least three

or four hours with sam just in case he

arrives

and

the next morning we set out first to

find juan mata

it was a long shot

at 7am we were out on the street in

front of juan mauler's house

we couldn't put a camera directly in

front of the house without being real

obvious so we had cameras in vans

i'm bleary-eyed because i've been up

most of the night delilah is exhausted

sam dalton fortunately is fresh and our

camera crew is wired ready for something

to happen i'm just about to say we might

not get anything when suddenly the gate

opens in front of his house

and outsteps juan mauler

[Music]

it is the first time any of the ebc team

has set eyes on the former ss officer

and we found it where we thought we

could find him

i knew it was him immediately the first

time i'd seen him

and i yelled out to everybody

there he is he's standing in the street

all of a sudden a taxi came

he got in it and the taxi took off

before we could do anything so i yelled

through the walkie-talkie

and we went after his taxi i was

terrified because i had lost sight of

him i was too far behind and we were in

a panic

and fortunately

sam was right behind him as they pulled

up to a pharmacy and donald said when i

say

jump

all of you jump into a street

sam and

his crew leaped out of a vehicle and

approached juan mauler who was exiting

the pharmacy

i was waiting on the sidewalk

i'm sam donaldson of american television

abc news

introduced myself he saw the cameras he

knew i was from american television and

he knew that he was being videotaped

he

looked like a rat who'd been caught with

the cameras on all sides but what do you

know what you want well is your name

reinhard cops excuse me but i have no

time for that sam is asking him

are you also raynard cops

and juan mahler said no

i am not

so harry phillips took out a photo where

you could see cops

dressed up as a nazi

this is not a

footer stat of your membership in the

nazi party no never had been a member i

kept pressing him

uh on this and i had his picture and i

had other identifying marks from him as

reinhard cops who look like the same guy

you are reinhardt cops

no no

no no i was i was in

52

the german embassy here gave me the name

the name of of maler

what was your name before mahler

cops cops your name was cops no it's not

divorce

we got him to admit that he's reiner

cops second thing was sam now i had to

ask him

did you help

nazis leave rome i pressed him on what

he had done have you ever heard of the

rat line

something called the rat line no no no

and after a little bit of questioning he

admitted that too i know now that it was

something like that but in those times i

did not know now i guess he must have

thought

i've got to

deflect this interest in me it was a

real shock what he said next i was not

in

slavery albania in the ss ambushed on

the street by abc news former ss officer

reinhard kopps is growing desperate

there's a lot of people here still not

see a lot i tell you who are they

pulled me up the street

as if to whisper to me

but i still had a microphone

i thought wow

i don't know what he's going to say but

it's going to be very interesting and he

whispered in sam's ear

his name is

he was nervous he wanted out of there he

wanted to deflect attention and so he

decided to give up eric pribke it was

priceless

we were giddy is the best word to

describe it

it would be hours before they could

confront prietka at the german school

how quickly could word spread

you know you have to realize this nazi

community in argentina was full of

rivalries and hatred there'd already

been the case of adolf eichmann who was

kidnapped in 1960 there was also lots of

rumors that went around the nazi

community in argentina that eichmann had

been betrayed by one of these one of his

fellow nazis as well

saw a community where everybody was very

suspicious of each other and they all

lived in fear that they would be

arrested or kidnapped

who knows if these individuals are

vindictive or whether they want to stop

us

or whether they feel that you know

that we have just gotten something that

could cause reinert cops to be arrested

and thrown in jail

but we only had half of our work done

and we were now planning for the home

run

eric pribke he was our next person to go

to

[Music]

the argentine caves massacre is

an incredibly important fixture on this

of italian cultural historical

landscape

to hide their crimes the nazis used

explosives to seal off the caves and

entombed their victims

it was only after rome's liberation

that the true horror of the massacre

came to light

the caves were opened later that year

and there's a lot of very gruesome uh

photography taken and a lot of testimony

from the archaeologists and scientists

who were there who helped dig it up it

is totally emblematic of nazi brutality

in june 1944 the allies entered rome

fled north to the italian alps

[Music]

one day there's a knock on the door and

the americans have come to arrest him

they're rounding people up privy openly

admitted to the ardatan cave's

massacre's participation he felt it was

a legitimate act of war as following

orders it was reprisal

priebus spent 18 months in a number of

prisoner of war camps

he decides after a period of time well

i'm going to escape so

one night he decides the way to get out

the weakest part of this camp

is the wire

and so he manages to cut his way out the

wire with two accomplices priebke knows

that he can't just stay on the run all

the time the best way

to secure

a happy future for himself and his

family is to emigrate

but priepka's future is no longer secure

four hours after confronting reinhardt

cops the abc news team stakes out the

school run by the former gestapo captain

delilah had done great work telling us

about his daily movements his schedule

was so set that you could set your clock

to it

we knew where he was he was at the

school at the primo caprara school eric

pipke was supposed to be there that

morning

helping with school children

helping in the classroom

delilah was insistent he will come out

of that building at exactly 1201

he will he will be punctual

on two corners we had a van with a

camera in them we had four

walkie-talkies we were all in

communication

but for some reason his car was parked

outside the school so now we knew

that perhaps he would get into his car

and drive somewhere meaning that we

would have a very small

opportunity

to catch him

[Music]

we weren't ready for the fact that his

car was parked outside the school

the attention is ratcheted up

and then at precisely 1201

he steps out of the school

all the doors fly open and we converge

on him fearful that he's going to jump

into his car and drive away

i approached him again i identified

myself

american television

sam donaldson of american television sam

is running across the street yelling

send your prim kick

and i'm having a heart attack because

i'm thinking speak english please don't

don't invite him to speak a foreign

language sam donaldson said eric bripke

and he turned round and

smiled yes

can we talk to you about what you did

during world war ii

i had no idea what he would say

finally abc news anchor sam donaldson

is face to face with fugitive nazi war

criminal eric preepka

i've interviewed a lot of people who

have committed crimes

and

they usually run when they see someone

like me

he clearly is not intimidated by us in

any way

[Music]

made no sense

here's a man that's committed terrible

crimes why does he want to talk

to a reporter

you were in the gestapo in 1944 were you

not

in rome yes in rome yes yes i am eric

pribke

yes i was in rome you know the

communists blow up there are a group of

our german australians yes for every

german sorry 10

10 italian had to die he admitted to

just about everything that he did but

why did you shoot them they had not done

anything

you know that was our order

donaldson is a man who wouldn't leave

you a second without asking things he

keeps asking and asking and asking but

orders are not an excuse

this time aura was an order

and and he was getting more and more

agitated he said we didn't want to do it

i didn't want to do it but i had to

you were just following orders yes of

course yes but i didn't shut anybody he

actually denied that he had shot anyone

personally

but we had

papers from a british prisoner of war

camp where he admitted shooting two

people we had his confession you were

there when they were shot the civilians

i had some yes the first ones yes i saw

them yes and you carried it out maybe i

had to carry it at all yes and civilians

died civilian diet yes when sam raised

the idea that perhaps

he was a war criminal

he was indignant

you will live in this time but we did

live in 1933

i ask him whether

old men

should pay for the crimes they commit

when they're young you know that was not

a crime that was a shooting civilians in

time of war is against all international

people today but not in this time

i'm sure dalila was enraged

i felt proud because i said

at least one

i got one

reporters are not supposed to be

emotional on the story we're trying to

get the facts and all of this

but

i did become emotional uh by this time

how do you feel about the fact that six

million jews were executed killed i feel

very sorry about it very very sorry but

you did it many young men do things when

there are old men like me now they're

very sorry about it and finally i said

to him

many people think you should be executed

for your crimes

and at that point

you could see a bell

ringing in his head

you know is this a good idea talking to

this idiot you came over me right for i

accepted not a nice man as you did

you are not a gentleman

and he slams the door and drives away

it was a high like you only experience

once in your career we got on a phone

and the reaction from new york is

oh my god this sounds amazing so i said

to harry i think we better get out of

town as quickly as we can

the worry that i had was that someone

would realize it would be advantageous

to get hold of that videotape and not

let it leave beraluchi that was my worry

abc news have captured nazi war

criminals reinhard cops and eric priebka

on tape

it is a huge story

they can't risk losing it

we knew that we had to get sam out of

town

and so within two hours of the

confrontation with pribco we called the

pilots who were hiding in barolocy by

the time sam got there they were just

about ready to go and he left very

quickly

it's safe to say within six hours of

that encounter those tapes were airborne

for the united states

it was better than the best luck i ever

could imagine this is one of those

moments where you just say everything

went absolutely right

we knew we had a great story that's all

we knew initially good evening tonight

we're going to tell the story of how

thousands of suspected nazi war

criminals escape justice when we put

this story in the air

what might happen to eric pribke

what is going to be the next story

the broadcast airs six weeks after the

50th anniversary of the audietine cave

massacre

the reaction in argentina was

an explosion of media in italy the same

thing happened because the italians

actually believed that all of the

perpetrators of that massacre in rome in

1944 were either dead or had been

convicted

within days of the broadcast priepka is

arrested

cops was hounded to the point where he

vanished and fled the country apparently

went to chile

and with pripka in custody the media

went crazy with pictures and stories and

full page headlines

it's

perhaps the one story that i'm proudest

of from the standpoint of making a

difference that i think counts

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italy demands that preeta be sent back

to rome

there was a year and a half tussle in

the argentine courts

but he finally was extradited to italy

to stand trial

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julia spitzekino who campaigned for his

extradition

attends the trial

he never looked at me never

because i was always the first person

who

speak about him

preep is brought to rome where he faces

a military tribunal

the tribunal finds him guilty of doing

what he did

but they have to set him free because he

was acting under orders that old excuse

huge outrage that he's been set free i

mean it's almost riot outside the

courtroom and so he's immediately

re-arrested

he appeals the verdict twice and is

finally sentenced to life

when you're over a certain age in italy

you can't actually be sent to prison he

is now currently serving his sentence in

the department in the centre of rome

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it made me very happy

and that was all

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i know it's difficult

but

for me it's impossible to forgive

to forgive it to forget

it was a validation of the highest order

you know to think that

governments were taking action

to prosecute this man based on our work

human nature has not yet come to the

point it seems to me but we can all just

say forget it these kind of atrocities

will not occur again

but one way to try to prevent them is

tell the story of how

people who may have started out as

ordinary human beings became murderers

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you