All language subtitles for Historys.Greatest.Mysteries.S07E02.1080p.WEB.h264-EDITH

Tonight, the global manhunt for a Nazi
war criminal who vanished after the

Holocaust and the stunning operation
that finally brought him to justice.

Adolf Eichmann was the architect of the
Nazi Holocaust.

He murdered millions of Jews, yet the
Allies never even knew his name.

He takes this idea of the final solution
and turns it into almost an assembly

line process.

At the end of World War II, Eichmann
hides in plain sight.

There's so much chaos that the Allies
don't even realize that they have

in custody, and by the time they realize
it, he's vanished.

Nazi hunters are convinced that Eichmann
is still alive, but a decade passes and

no one knows where he could possibly be.

Now, we explore the top theories
surrounding Adolf Eichmann's whereabouts

leading up to his dramatic capture.

These Nazis in Germany end up with a
really surprising ally, the Catholic

Church. An Israeli investigator receives
a tip -off that Adolf Eichmann has been

recently spotted in Kuwait.

There was only one existing photograph
of Eichmann. It's really like hunting a

ghost. What really happened to Adolf
Eichmann?

It's January 1942, and in a lakeside
mansion near Berlin, 15 senior Nazi

officials are meeting.

The topic, the systematic annihilation
of Europe's Jews, what the Nazis refer

as the final solution.

Along with these high officials, there's
one lieutenant colonel, very quiet,

very unassuming, taking notes, but he's
also providing information like... the

amount of Jews in different countries.

This is Adolf Eichmann.

Eichmann is not really well known as a
front man of the Nazis. He's more of a

behind -the -scenes bureaucrat, and he
really views the killing of millions of

Jews as sort of this logistical problem
that he is in charge of solving.

Eichmann grows up in Austria, the son of
an accountant.

He joins the Nazi party in 1932.

at age 26.

Eichmann had joined the SD, the SS
intelligence agency, in 1934.

In 1936, he's recruited by a member of
the SD to join the so -called Jewish

Affairs Division.

And eventually, he comes to take over
this division.

He makes a name for himself after the
annexation of Austria, where he works

a system for basically speeding up the
emigration of Jewish populations outside

of Germany.

He figures out how to conduct these mass
deportations as fast as possible. He

devises a system to give deportation
papers to Jewish people on the spot

also stripping them of their
possessions, stripping them of their

getting them essentially out of the
country within less than an hour's time.

Once World War II starts, Adolf Eichmann
becomes more and more fanatical. And

once the final solution is decided upon,
he becomes the central operational

figure. behind the Holocaust.

Hitler is the one who's ordering these
atrocities, but Eichmann is the

bureaucrat in charge of actually
carrying them out.

There are a lot of pieces of information
that come out of Nazi Germany during

World War II, and it's just so hard for
Westerners to comprehend this scale of

tragedy that it's not until we start to
overrun some of the outlying murder

camps that we can't deny what's going on
anymore.

In January of 1945, Hitler retreats to
his bunker.

By April of that year, he's dead. And
then on May 7th of 1945, the Germans

surrender.

Despite the fact that many high -ranking
Nazis have been captured, Eichmann is

never found.

And on top of that, most of the world
has never even heard his name.

Six months go by before the public
finally learns about Adolf Eichmann and

role in the Holocaust.

In November of 1945, all eyes are on
Nuremberg, Germany, where 24 Nazi

are put on trial for their atrocities
during World War II.

And it's here that Adolf Eichmann's name
first comes up.

Prosecutors quote this Hungarian Jewish
leader who tells the story of a mass...

of Hungarian Jews from Budapest. So
there's a special unit that is running

operations there, and Eichmann is in
charge of that unit. He is the one who's

going to decide who's going to the gas
chambers and who will live.

A few weeks later, on January 3, 1946,
an SS captain with ties

to Eichmann is called to testify.

He had joined the Nazis' intelligence
service and ended up becoming one of

Eichmann's men in the so -called Jewish
Affairs Division of the Gestapo.

He claims that he pushed back against
his plan to kill millions of Jews, but

Eichmann simply told him, you're being
too sentimental about it.

The Nuremberg testimony gives Eichmann
worldwide notoriety, but his whereabouts

are still unknown.

Finding Eichmann won't be easy.

But after the revelations at Nuremberg,
it's a priority.

The question is, where could he be?

There are millions of Germans packed
into POW camps all over Europe. The

Americans alone have two million in
captivity.

But these camps are cramped. They're not
well organized. They don't have the

names of everybody in them. But the
obvious place to look for Eichmann is in

camps around Europe.

Despite the fact that most of the world
has never heard the name Adolf Eichmann,

the U .S. Counterintelligence Corps has
actually been compiling a dossier on him

for months.

Investigators go and track down
Eichmann's wife, Vera. They find her in

She claims that she hasn't seen her
husband in months, and she doesn't even

a photograph of him.

It's clear that he was really planning
ahead here. He was making sure that

were no pictures of him left over.

SS officers tell Allied officials that
Eichmann was still alive at the end of

the war, and he probably still is. They
don't think that Eichmann would have

taken his own life the way that other
Nazi officials did at this time.

With all of the chaos and the
disorganization and the disarray of

camps, it becomes very, very likely that
Eichmann is using these POW camps to

hide out. The Allies also assume that
he's using an alien.

The CIC distributes notices to their
regional offices, and they call

quote, of the highest importance among
war criminals.

As it turns out, the Americans already
have Eichmann in custody. They just

know it.

At the end of the war, Eichmann actually
goes down into Austria to hide out, and

there are tons of Nazis all over the
place hiding from the Allies.

He meets with his wife and gives her
instructions on how to deal with Allied

investigators, which he knows are
coming.

His plan is to head northwest through
Germany with his assistant, staying in

homes of people who are sympathetic to
former Nazis.

A little later in May, however, Eichmann
and his assistant are picked up by U

.S. Army patrol, and they're taken to a
U .S. POW camp in Weiden.

Eichmann gives a false name, a false
identity, by the name of Adolf Barth.

In the camp, Eichmann plots how to keep
from being discovered and how to escape.

Eichmann is going to be identified
sooner or later because every SS officer

Eichmann has a unique identifier that's
not common in the rest of the German

Wehrmacht. Every SS soldier has his
blood type tattooed inside his armpit.

that means if you make all of the
captives take off their shirts and hold

hands up in the air, you can quickly
pick out a fanatical Nazi.

He tries to burn that tattoo with
cigarettes, but it doesn't work, so he's

going to be able to claim he's not a
member of the SS, but there are plenty

SS men who are POWs at the end of the
war.

So what he tells the Allied officials is
that his name is actually Otto

Eichmann, and that he's a lieutenant
colonel in the SS.

Eichmann makes the switch, thinking
Eichmann is close enough to his real

surname. If an old acquaintance were to
suddenly blurt out his real name,

Eichmann, in the camp...

it would be less likely to rouse
suspicion.

Eichmann knows that he can't play this
game forever.

He's gotten through a couple of
interrogations undetected, but he knows

only a matter of time before he's found
out to be who he really is.

He finds some SS.

officers in the camp who help him in his
escape. He's able to forge papers that

pass him off as a hunter in the area,
and the SS officers in the camp also get

him some civilian clothes.

And one night, Eichmann is able to climb
over a section of barbed wire fence

that isn't viewed by any camp guards,
and he's able to make his escape into

surrounding woods.

And there he vanishes.

Authorities learned that an SS officer
named Otto Ekman has escaped.

And so they interrogate all the other
former SS officers that are in the camp.

And those people confirm that Otto Ekman
actually is Adolf Eichmann.

It really shows how disorganized the
situation in Europe is at the end of 45

beginning of 46.

the Allies wind up realizing that
they've been looking for Eichmann for

when in reality he was hiding right
underneath their nose inside one of

own compounds.

And so it's a little embarrassing, it's
a little frustrating, but it also means

that they're pretty hot on his tail.

In the wake of World War II, the
Nuremberg Military Tribunal declared the

criminal organization, citing its direct
involvement in war atrocities.

The Allied powers would go on to arrest
hundreds of SS officials.

But as of 1946, one of the most
notorious of these is still missing.

Adolf Eichmann. It's not just Allied
officials who are searching for

We also have the Haganah, the Jewish
intelligence services that ultimately

became the IDF once the Israeli state
was established.

The Haganah try to find Eichmann by
assembling this team of five operatives

are going to track his family.

They launch this much more elaborate
investigation than the Allied forces

The team travels to Austria and, after
months of searching, locates the current

homes of Eichmann's wife and brother
Otto.

As the members of Hagenau start tracking
Vera and her brother -in -law, what

they discover is the two of them
regularly take train trips out to the

countryside, basically between Linz and
Salzburg. They always travel separately

but arrive at the same time, and they
then walk into the forest, essentially,

a two -story house that's kind of
camouflaged from casual observation.

The team investigates the house, and
what they find is there's four men

in it, and they never come out. But
every night, an individual comes to the

and brings them food.

The five -man team from a distance sees
one of these figures that they think

looks like Eichmann, but they really
can't tell.

They theorize that this is why Vera and
his brother are coming and staying and

visiting for a while.

Sensing they may have found their man,
the operatives stage a raid on the

chalet.

One night while the men are having
dinner inside this house, five members

Haganah approach.

Two of them kick in the door while the
other ones pull guns on the men inside

this secluded home. They single out the
individual that they think might be

Adolf Eichmann, and they remove him from
the house.

The operatives are shouting questions at
the man that they're convinced is Adolf

Eichmann, but the man is telling them,
I'm not Adolf Eichmann, my name is

Wolfgang Bauer. But after a bit of time,
Bauer reveals that he actually was an

SS officer, but he's still not the man
that they're looking for.

He's not Eichmann, but he knows
Eichmann. He served with Eichmann, and

actually part of the Einsatzgruppen that
Eichmann oversaw. This was this.

Mobile death squad that came in and
exterminated Jews usually by shooting

they killed millions of people Still
convinced the man is Eichmann himself

the operatives drag him out into a
waiting car and drive him deeper into

woods

They say, if you're not Eichmann, why
are Eichmann's wife and brother

continually visiting you?

And his only answer is that they were
friends with the owner of the chalet

they were staying.

They continue peppering him with
questions. One of the operatives is

gun directly at his chest, and Bauer
basically just laughs at the operatives,

and he tells them, all you can do is
kill me.

So that's what the operatives do.

They pump bullets into his chest.

And they bury him in a shallow grave,
and then later the Haganah go back to

their superiors, and they tell them that
they have successfully killed Adolf

Eichmann.

Nobody's quite sure what to think about
the Eichmann situation.

There are some that are convinced that
Haganah had gotten the wrong man, that

fact the individual they shot really was
Wolfgang Bauer, and he was telling the

truth. He wasn't Eichmann.

Others, on the other hand, are convinced
that Adolf Eichmann is killed by the

Haganah and it's officially over. Case
closed.

As for the Allied forces, they're not as
worried anymore about looking for

Nazi war criminals, considering that by
1947, the Allied forces are dealing

with, in their minds, a much bigger
deal, which is the burgeoning Cold War.

One man still in pursuit is an Austrian
Holocaust survivor named Simon

Wiesenthal, who's dedicated his life to
hunting down Nazi war criminals.

Wiesenthal becomes convinced that the
Hagenau victim was not Eichmann, that

individual was someone else who might
have been connected to him. In fact,

Wiesenthal is fairly frustrated that
they shot the individual rather than

bringing him in for deeper interrogation
because he might have been able to

offer some clues as to Eichmann's actual
whereabouts.

But he has to work with the materials
that are available to him. So he begins

the beginning, and he starts looking at
the individuals that were closest to

Eichmann.

Working with other investigators,
Wiesenthal is able to source a photo of

Eichmann, finally putting a face to the
notorious Nazi criminal.

In December of 1947, Wiesenthal is
called to Austria to the USCIC

for an urgent meeting.

He's told there that Eichmann's wife
Vera has just put in an application to

her husband legally declared dead.

Now, she says she does this in the
interest of their children. But if he

fact, declared dead, the warrants that
are out on Eichmann will disappear. The

search for him will officially be over.

And the proof of the death is that there
is a report coming from a government

officer in Czechoslovakia named Lukas
that he witnessed Eichmann being killed

a Soviet firing squad at the end of
World War II.

Paul Lucas swears in an affidavit that
Eichmann, along with other Nazis, were

apprehended by the Red Army. They were
lined up shoulder to shoulder and

executed on April 30th, 1945, by members
of the Soviet Army.

Wiesenthal is not buying it. He has
interviewed people in the POW camps who

that they saw Eichmann after April of
1945.

And he starts thinking Vera has probably
submitted this application as an

attempt to end the hunt for her husband.

Wiesenthal petitions the court to
essentially postpone the decision about

whether Eichmann was alive or dead.

Wiesenthal thinks that given a little
bit of time, he can actually prove that

Eichmann is still alive.

He sends investigators to Prague to both
find out more evidence on Eichmann and

also to basically check the background
on Lucas.

So this investigation is three years
after this alleged shooting. So there's

really no evidence to be found there.

But what Wiesenthal's researchers do
find that's rather fascinating is that

Lucas is married to Vera's sister.

When Wiesenthal approaches the judge and
points out that the star witness

suggesting that Eichmann was dead is
actually married to his wife's sister,

judge is mortified because that's
something that the witness should have

revealed at the very beginning of the
discussion.

Ultimately, the judge throws the case
out. He can't rule Eichmann dead on the

basis of individuals testifying who had
a vested interest in an outcome.

So to Wiesenthal...

This pretty much confirms his
suspicions. Eichmann is still alive and

whatever he can to elude the long arm of
justice.

So Eichmann could presumably be
anywhere.

By 1950, with the Cold War heating up,
the Allied powers are less focused on

hunting Nazi war criminals.

But it remains risky for Nazi fugitives,
even those with fake identities, to

pass through border checkpoints and
escape Europe.

Nazi hunters like Simon Wiesenthal have
no idea if Eichmann's still in Germany

or could have escaped thousands of miles
away.

In a major surprise to Western powers,
some of the former Nazis are actually

gaining assistance escaping Europe
thanks to the Catholic Church.

The Catholic Church sees the Nazis as
one of the great ways to fight against

evils of communism.

There are still plenty of fascist
sympathizers.

after World War II, and they start
creating these secret routes via safe

that are called rat lines as a way to
help Nazis escape to safer areas. And

Catholic Church plays a role in this
because some of these rat lines, some of

these safe houses, are monasteries that
exist in places like Germany, Austria,

Switzerland, Spain, and Italy.

You have a number of cardinals and a
number of upper -level Catholic

administrators.

who are sympathetic to the Nazis, not
because of their anti -Jewish stance,

because they saw them as an ally in the
fight against communism, which they saw

as much worse than even Nazism.

Italy is vital to all this because in
Rome there's a Catholic bishop named

Hudal who was very pro -Nazi, and he's
got the ability to make the fake papers

to get these former Nazis out of Europe.

These papers are accepted by the Red
Cross, no questions asked. The Red Cross

really overseeing the flow of refugees.

And so these former Nazis and SS
officers are basically able to just

with other refugees and being able to
get out of the country.

By the early 1950s, investigators
believe it's possible Eichmann has taken

advantage of the rat line.

About 90 % of these Nazis escaped Europe
through...

Italy or Spain.

And they were on their way, most of
them, to South America.

Argentina is a safe haven for these
Germans.

President Juan Perón was a close ally of
Hitler's during the war.

So who'd all knew exactly who he was
helping here? He writes to Perón,

in 1948 and asks for 5 ,000 visas to
help Nazis escape.

So Argentina seems like a good place to
try to start looking for Eichmann.

There are rumors that start to circulate
that by the 1950s, Eichmann has fled to

Argentina and has started a life there.
Now, for the most part, the newly formed

West German government largely ignores a
lot of these rumors. But there's one

prosecutor that just will not let this
information go.

He's a German Jewish prosecutor by the
name of Fritz Bauer.

He and his family had fled from German
persecution early on in the Third Reich,

so he escaped some of the worst evils of
the Holocaust.

But when he returns to Germany in the
post -war era, he's determined to set

of the wrongs right.

Bauer can't be too open with what he's
up to because he doesn't know who in the

German hierarchy might be sympathetic to
those individuals and might tip them

off to the possibility of their
discovery.

In September 1957, Bauer receives a
letter from Lothar Hermann, a blind

living in Argentina.

Hermann is one of the German expats
living in Argentina. He's Jewish and

a rather large Jewish population. Even
though Peron is really anti -Semitic,

there's a population of about 400 ,000
Jews living in Argentina.

Hermann is a survivor of one of the most
notorious concentration camps of World

War II, Dachau.

In fact, he endured such vicious
beatings during his time at the camp

actually lost his eyesight.

He immigrates to Argentina in 1938 with
his wife and his daughter. In 1956, he's

living in a suburb of Buenos Aires with
his family. And his daughter, Sylvia, is

dating this young German expat named
Nick.

So one night while having dinner over at
the Hermann's house, young Nick says

that his dad was a high official in the
Wehrmacht, the German army.

Nick has no idea that he's talking to a
Jewish family.

The Hermanns do not publicize the fact
that they're Jewish. So he just keeps

talking and talking and eventually says,
it's a shame the Nazis were never able

to complete their mission of
extermination.

The Hermann family.

just sits quietly. The father doesn't
say anything.

He's used to hearing anti -Semitic
comments.

He knows that this is just how it goes
sometimes.

He's disappointed that his daughter is
dating him, I'm sure, but he just lets

go. A few months later, the Herman
family moved a couple of hundred miles

to another town, and the boyfriend is
forgotten.

One day in April of 1957, Sylvia is
reading an article in the newspaper for

father are about Nazi war criminals, and
she mentions the name Adolf Eichmann.

And she says her boyfriend, Nick, said
that his last name is Eichmann.

Lothar Herrmann instantly remembers the
boys' hateful comments at the dinner

table.

Sylvia is still in touch with Nick, but
he's never given her his home address.

He gives her a different address to
write to to get to him. And oddly

While Sylvia and Nick were dating, he
never invited her over to his house. So

Lothar immediately suspects that this
might be Adolf Eichmann's son.

They want to tell the German authorities
or the Argentinian authorities, but

they really can't because Nazi
sympathizers are everywhere at this

So instead, they write a letter to the
prosecutors in Frankfurt, West Germany.

And that's the letter that makes its way
to Fritz Bauer.

So Bauer's intrigued.

He knows that Eichmann's son is named
Klaus.

But in German, Klaus is actually short
for Nicholas. So this seems promising,

but he needs more information, such as
an address.

Lothar and Sylvia take a 10 -hour train
ride from their home back to the

suburb of Olivos. And they pretty much
spend the day just...

walking around the town until Sylvia
runs into a mutual friend of hers and

Nick's that tells her where Nick's house
is.

He gives her the address.

In 1957, teenager Sylvia Herrmann and
her father, Lothar,

are convinced Cynthia's old boyfriend is
the son of Nazi war criminal Adolf

Eichmann. They've tracked him.

to the Olivos suburb of Buenos Aires,
but need to confirm his identity before

passing it along to the authorities.

Sylvia goes to the house. The door is
answered by a woman who reluctantly lets

her in. There is a middle -aged man in
glasses, and she thinks... that he

like the guy in the picture that Fritz
Bauer had sent to her of Adolf Eichmann,

but she's not totally sure.

So she asks him, she says, are you Mr.

Eichmann? Are you Nick's father?

And he sort of tersely responds, no, I'm
his uncle.

So she sits down and just strikes up a
pleasant conversation with him.

Nick comes home shortly thereafter and
sees Sylvia. Says, what are you doing

here? Oh, I just stopped to say hi. I
have to go. I have to go. The middle

man wearing glasses who has claimed to
be the uncle stands up to walk her to

door. And Nick says, no, father, I can
walk her to the door myself.

So it would seem that the Hermanns have
stumbled on something pretty suspicious.

The fact that it took all this time to
figure out Nick's address, why was he

being so cagey about where he lives, and
then when Sylvia arrives to the house,

the woman that answers the door
reluctantly lets her in. The man claims

Nick's uncle, but then Nick refers to
him as father.

Something just is not adding up in this
situation.

Although Fritz Bauer is intrigued, he's
got a problem. He can't really rely on

German or Argentinian authorities to
follow up on this information. There's

too many Nazi sympathizers within both
of those populations.

So instead, he turns to the new Israeli
intelligence service, the Mossad.

The Mossad go to the house that Hermann
said told them about. But when they get

there, they don't think it's the right
address.

It is ramshackle. It's worn out.

And I just can't believe that an SS
officer of the rank and fortune of

would be living there.

As they watch the house, they just don't
see anybody coming and going that

matches Eichmann's description. So
they're pretty certain this is a case of

mistaken identity.

The Mossad let the tip go.

The Hermans, though, they don't want to
let this go.

So in April of 1958, they're going
through public records, and they find

that the home is owned by a guy named
Francisco Schmidt.

And they think that this is just the
latest alias of Adolf Eichmann.

And so they go back to the Mossad, and
they say, look into Francisco Schmidt.

And they do, and they say, there's no
way that Francisco Schmidt is actually

Adolf Eichmann.

At this point, they pause their contact
with the Hermanns because they just

think that they're full of unreliable
information.

A year later, in August of 1959, an
independent Nazi investigator, Tuvia

Friedman, says that he's been in contact
with some high government officials in

Germany, and they've told him that
Eichmann is not in Argentina. He's in

Kuwait at this time is this sort of
obscure British territory. There's only

about 300 ,000 people living there.

North Africa and the Middle East are
actually very popular destinations for

-Nazis. Friedman immediately contacts
the Israeli Defense Ministry, and he

that Eichmann is in Kuwait. You should
send some agents over there to go pick

him up. But the ministry pretty much
ignores Friedman entirely.

Israel is a brand new country and has a
long list of security priorities.

And Friedman realizes that Eichmann is
not really the top of the list or maybe

even the middle of it. But he's not
going to give up.

So Friedman contacts an Israeli
newspaperman and says, have I got a

you. Adolf Eichmann, the former Nazi, is
living in Kuwait.

Friedman suddenly becomes an
international celebrity, and he uses his

draw attention to the fact that Eichmann
has not been located.

Other Nazi hunters are not happy. They
believe it's going to do nothing but

drive Eichmann either underground or out
of Kuwait.

No solid evidence of Eichmann turns up
in Kuwait, and the trail once again

to run cold.

Nevertheless, Friedman is pleased.

with what he did, because now he's put
Adolf Eichmann's name in newspapers all

over the world, and this becomes a way
to potentially inspire

not only Nazi hunters, but actual
governments to locate this Nazi war

and bring him to justice.

In late 1959, there's a rash of anti
-Semitic activity throughout West

Reportedly, swastikas are painted on
nearly 700 Jewish sites across the

along with graffiti reading Jews out.

It's a painful time, but the attacks do
help galvanize all the parties that are

or should be hunting down Nazi war
criminals.

It is important to acknowledge that
there were still Nazi sympathies. Even

though they had been defeated in World
War II, that didn't mean that...

pro -Nazi sentiment completely
disappeared.

This can explain why it took West
Germany so long to take the hunt for

seriously.

Up to this point, there has been a lot
of foot dragging.

West German intelligence has been
sitting on a lot of evidence that Adolf

Eichmann is alive in Argentina and
living under an assumed name.

After years of pursuing Eichmann, West
German prosecutor Fritz Bauer...

receives new intel pointing him to
Eichmann's alleged alien.

Bauer gets a tip from a man named
Gerhard Klammer.

And Klammer used to work for a
construction company in northern

guy named Ricardo Clement.

He's never forgotten the man's face, and
he's seen it in news coverage as the

years have gone by. And he is thoroughly
convinced that Ricardo Clement is

actually Adolf Eichmann.

Now, he was German, but he wasn't a
Nazi. He was anti -Nazi, as so many

were. And so he spends the 1950s trying
multiple times to notify the German

government that Ricardo Clement is there
in Argentina and that he is Adolf

Eichmann.

In an amazing coincidence...

Klammer is in Buenos Aires, and he sees
a man get off the bus that he recognizes

as his old co -worker, Ricardo Clement.

He follows the man and writes down the
address where the man goes home.

Finally, in December of 1959, we might
have definitive evidence of where Adolf

Eichmann is hiding.

Klammer's findings make their way to
Fritz Bauer, and this is when Bauer

to slowly put together...

the pieces of this puzzle. He knows the
name Ricardo Clement because that

information was provided to him by the
Hermanns when Sylvia found that name

registered on the electric meter of the
house that he's living in. On top of

that, Klammer also has a photograph of
him and Ricardo Clement standing

together. And when Bauer takes this
photograph and puts it by the photo that

they have of Adolf Eichmann, the
resemblance...

is incredibly striking.

A few months later, Bauer reaches out to
the Mossad.

He knows where Eichmann is hiding. He
just hopes it's not too late.

The Mossad recognizes that they might
have made a mistake about whether or not

Eichmann is still alive and well in
Argentina.

In March of 1960, a new Mossad agent is
sent to Argentina and he starts to

investigate. The agent who is assigned
this case is Zvi Aharoni. He was known

being very methodical, very unflappable.
He could do just about any job that

needed to be done.

While he and his mother had escaped the
Holocaust and gotten to Palestine by

1938, the entire rest of his family was
killed.

So the idea that he could capture
Eichmann was personal.

Zvi goes to the neighborhood and checks
out the house in Buenos Aires.

only to find that Ricardo Clement has
just recently moved out. There's a team

painters painting the house.

So Zvi finds an ally in this young
Argentinian kid in the neighborhood who

up to the painters and is trying to get
the address of where Ricardo Clement

moved. He claims to be determined to
deliver a package to the family that had

previously inhabited the home.

And it turns out one of the workers is
actually friends with one of the

family's sons.

And after a little more discussion, he's
persuaded to provide the new address

where the Clements family resides.

This new property was purchased by
Eichmann's wife using her maiden name.

And they've moved to San Fernando, which
is just outside of Buenos Aires.

The address is 14 Garibaldi Street.

Using caution...

Aharoni surveils the address.

And during his surveillance, he notices
a middle -aged man that bears a

pretty striking resemblance to Adolf
Eichmann. And with this information,

Aharoni contacts the Mossad and tells
them, quote, the driver is black.

This is a code that basically tells the
Mossad that Eichmann has been found.

In the spring of 1960, the war criminal
investigation that began with a hunch

from a blind attorney and his teenage
daughter reaches the desk of Israeli

Minister David Ben -Gurion. With this
information, the Prime Minister of

Ben -Gurion, decides to send an 11 -man
team of Mossad agents to Buenos Aires to

capture Eichmann and bring him back to
Israel. It's called Operation Finale.

The Mossad agents run surveillance on
Eichmann for two months, and they track

all of his movements because the better
they know where he goes, where he stops,

what he does during the day, it'll be
much easier to figure out when's the

time to strike. And they figure out he
gets off the same bus every single day

and makes this short walk to his house,
and that's when they'll strike.

On the evening of May 11, 1960, the
operation unfolds like a scene from a

novel.

Adolph Eichmann has become very set in
his daily patterns.

Every day he climbs off of a city bus at
7 .40 p .m. and he follows the same

path to his house just 110 yards away.

But on this night, 7 .40 passes and
Eichmann's bus has yet to arrive.

The Mossad operators are waiting for him
near the bus stop. They have a

limousine full of agents. They even have
a couple guys outside of the car who

are sort of pretending to work under the
hood. There's another guy in a backup

car behind them.

740 comes and goes. The bus doesn't
come. So now they're confused.

This is not how they were expecting
things to go down.

It's getting later and later. And they
realize...

Really, the longer that they sit there,
the more likely it is that they're going

to get noticed by someone.

So finally, a bus arrives.

The agent's blood pressure rises. They
know that this is the moment, but the

doesn't stop. It just whizzes by.

The methad agent's probably starting to
get a little bit nervous.

What if somebody tipped off Eichmann? So
we should abort for tonight. Maybe

we'll try again later with the hopes
that this operation will work.

But then...

Five minutes later, at 8 .05 p .m.,
another bus pulls up to the bus stop.

Twenty -five minutes late, their suspect
steps off the bus.

He starts making the walk to his street.
They're going to let him get to his

street. And it's there that an agent
named Peter Malkin goes up to him and

Un momentito, senor.

And he must know something's up because
he takes off running.

Malkin has to go and really tackle him
to the ground.

After a struggle, they drag him into the
limousine.

And while they're in the car, he's
strangely silent. And then suddenly, in

perfect German, he says to them, I am
resigned to my fate. Now, before this,

Mossad agents were 99 % sure this was
Eichmann after he says this.

They know 100 % they've got their man.

For nine tense days, the Mossad agents
keep Eichmann sequestered in a safe

while trying to figure out the details
of his extraction. Because you have to

understand, these Mossad agents are in a
sovereign nation.

They have just apprehended a citizen of
that nation. And now they're going to

try to extradite this person out of the
country without the Argentinian

government. No.

So they have to be very, very careful
about every step that they take, because

if something goes wrong, Eichmann could
be allowed to stay in Argentina and not

be extradited back to Israel.

What they end up doing could be a part
of a movie.

They drug him, put him in a flight crew
uniform, and take him to the airport.

They drag him along as if he's just some
drunk pilot that they're going to put

on the plane.

They're very nonchalant, laughing about
this. Here's this drunk pilot. No big

deal. This isn't Adolf Eichmann, the
architect of the Holocaust. This isn't a

prisoner who we've drugged. This is just
some drunk flight crew member who we're

going to take home before he gets in
trouble.

They finally get to Israel.

Eichmann is caught.

He knows that he is, and he's resigned
to his fate.

Now, at long last.

one of the primary engineers of the
Holocaust, will stand trial for his

Eichmann's trial commences in 1961, and
his defense essentially suggests that

he's a low -ranking bureaucrat who was
merely following orders and doing his

job. However, as the trial develops, the
evidence makes it clear that Eichmann

was absolutely central to the
propagation of the Holocaust.

Eichmann is ultimately found guilty of
war crimes against humanity.

It sentenced to death, and it hanged for
his crimes on June 1, 1962.

Government authorities eventually took
down Eichmann, but the details of his

capture remind us of the role played by
ordinary people.

The Hermanns, a blind lawyer and his
teenage daughter with no training, were

first to truly expose Eichmann's new
life in Argentina, and they never gave

seeking justice.

I'm Lawrence Fishburne. Thank you for
watching this case -closed episode of

history's greatest mystery.