Original subtitles

(suspenseful music)

The BKA,

the German Federal Police in Wiesbaden.

For six years the agency is run by a man integral

to its inception, Paul Dickopf.

(Paul chattering)

A top civil servant, with a seemingly clean record,

he claims he opposed the Nazis.

(dramatic music)

Until 1971, during Willy Brandt's time as chancellor,

he is the top criminologist in West Germany.

(suspenseful music)

(Dieter speaking in foreign language)

Anyone who criticized him,

or posed any kind of threat to him,

was never allowed to forget it.

He held a grudge and destroyed such people.

Dickopf doesn't only forge a career

for himself in West Germany.

In 1968 he becomes head of Interpol.

It's now his job to fight crime on an international scale.

(Dieter speaking in foreign language)

When Dickopf left,

Genscher, his Interior Minister of the time,

held him out as an example to police all over Germany.

(dramatic music)

After Dickopf's death, in 1973,

staff researching files to compile his obituary

make an astonishing find.

They turn up documents outing Dickopf as a staunch Nazi.

His lifelong lie finally comes to light.

(dramatic music)

Dickopf was not only a member of the SS and a Nazi spy.

Shortly before the end of the war,

he switched sides to start working

as an agent for the Americans.

Numerous CIA documents given an insight

into the work of Caravel, which was Dickopf's CIA code name.

The highest ranking member of the German police

sold confidential information from the Bahn government.

Chancellor Willy Brandt and his Ostpolitik

was of particular interest to the Americans.

And Dickopf readily provided the information

as did many other Nazis, during the Cold War.

They became willing helpers, spies,

because American intelligence services

used their pasts to blackmail them.

(suspenseful music) (people chattering)

(Wilhelm speaking in foreign language)

The Americans were never very bothered

if the people they needed have closes ties

to mass murderers, or extremists, or terrorists.

The ends justified the means.

American intelligence services

faced a new enemy, communism.

The US enlisted former Nazis as spies.

There was no attempt to punish them for their war crimes.

As the Cold War grew hot,

these Nazi collaborators became pawns

of Western intelligence services,

for a variety of both psychological warfare type missions,

covert operations, and this type of thing.

(dramatic suspenseful music)

Only now, are Secret Service files

from the Cold War, accessible.

And they contain documents about Nazis,

who became willing CIA spies.

Another case, that has recently surfaced,

is that of Eugen Steinle, a die-hard Nazi

who led firing squads in the Soviet Union.

(suspenseful music) (airplane engine whirring)

Steinle was thought to be among those killed

when a Lufthansa plane crashed near Nuremberg,

on the 20th of April, 1945.

Eyewitnesses saw the burning plane in the sky.

And the crash sight is still visible

in the Piesenkofen Forest today.

(people chattering)

At the time, locals collected up everything

they found around the wreckage.

(suspenseful music)

One item recovered was a briefcase

containing documents and IDs.

Among them, was one belonging to Steinle.

The briefcase was taken

to the local Nazi commander's office.

A few days later US troops marched into the area.

And the briefcase was seized

by members of the army's Secret Service.

The Americans were looking for Nazis

they could use for their own purposes.

And every personal detail would help them in their search.

They suspected Steinle was still alive.

CIA documents, listing the contents of the briefcase,

make it possible to reconstruct what really happened.

The Lufthansa plane takes off from Tempelhof

on April the 20th, 1945,

while the Battle for Berlin is raging.

Those on board know it's only a matter of time

before the Russians and the Western Allies, take power.

(artillery booming)

There are more than 20 passengers on the Condor,

among them, a number of men in leather overcoats.

(engine roaring)

The captain takes off under the cover of darkness.

The planned destination is Spain with a fuel stop in Munich.

But the weather is bad.

(Karl speaking in foreign language)

I can still remember my father telling us

over breakfast about a low-flying plane

making such a racket.

(engine rumbling)

(Maria speaking in foreign language)

A friend lives very near to here

and that evening, a burning plane flew over her roof.

Panic-stricken, her mother grabbed hold of both the children

and threw them and herself to the ground.

She said that since the father had died in the war,

the three of them should die together.

(explosion whooshing)

The plane crashes

in a forest with no survivors.

Were there high-ranking Nazis on-board the Condor,

trying to get to Spain?

American intelligence flies the briefcase

and the documents to the US.

(airplane rumbling)

The agents in Washington know the end of the war

will herald a new chapter

in the confrontation of the superpowers.

And, in order to secure an advantage,

they will recruit former, top Nazis.

(dramatic music)

They strike it lucky.

One man in the files is of particular interest

to the Americans, SS-Standartenfuhrer Steinle.

Their research tells them he was responsible

for mass murders in Russia.

(gun firing)

(dramatic music)

The agents suspect he is still alive

as a number of witnesses report having seen him,

after the crash.

(mysterious music)

(dramatic music)

Locals near the crash sight are questioned again.

As a war criminal, Steinle is valuable to the Americans.

(dramatic music)

It was impossible

to systematically recruit intelligence agents

without systematically recruiting war criminals.

Those things went together.

(suspenseful music)

They launch a manhunt across Germany

for Eugen Steinle who fled to his home in the Black Forest.

(dramatic music) (people chattering)

The net closes and in autumn, 1945,

the former SS intelligence officer

turns himself in for interrogation.

He knows his only chance is to tell the truth.

(mysterious music)

(Wilhelm speaking in foreign language)

A defector, who has something to hide,

murders, for example, can be blackmailed.

And is therefore malleable in the hands of his new bosses.

Steinle collaborates.

His testimony on the documents from the briefcase

help the Americans to uncover an entire network

of German spies in Spain.

It consists of dozens of ex-Nazis,

who followed the collapse of the Third Reich,

are already working on their next crazy idea,

the Fourth Reich, which translates to worldwide fascism.

The Americans observe them

and recruit the Spanish players to work on their behalf.

(dramatic music)

Following his interrogation,

Steinle is sentenced to death by hanging.

But is then, surprisingly pardoned.

Did the Americans enlist him and influence the verdict?

There is no proof as important files are missing

from the US interrogation center in Oberursel.

(suspenseful music)

(dramatic music)

Nazis like Dickopf and Steinle had become agents.

But the US intelligence services want more than just spies,

they want Nazi traitors.

Right up until the war was over

the Allies believed the Nazis had an Alpine redoubt.

Even now the myth of missing Nazi gold

still lures treasure hunters to the area.

But do these treasures really exist?

(suspenseful music)

(metal detector beeping)

Towards the end of the war German industry made plans

to secure its capital in the event of defeat.

(people chattering)

This was very dangerous, to have such discussions.

But nevertheless, the alternative of losing everything

when Hitler was finally dead,

however that exactly happened, was even more dangerous.

So they went ahead with this.

And they started to draw up plans,

some of which still exist,

on how they would attempt

to reconstitute Germany after Hitler left.

(eerie music)

These activities were no secret

to the Allied intelligence services.

They launched

a large-scale international surveillance operation

code named Safe Haven.

(suspenseful music)

Safe Haven was the name of a US Government program

whose task it was to track and seize assets

that the Nazis had seized, had looted, from Europe

and were attempting to distribute around the world,

in order to, for use after 1945.

The Americans knew such plans had been hatched

by industry and even in the Reich chancery.

They were also aware of a network

of foreign companies set up to keep funds safe.

In Monaco, in particular,

numerous shell corporations had access to millions.

(suspenseful music)

One company was a broadcaster

on whose board sat the then unknown Kurt Georg Kiesinger.

He would eventually become chancellor of West Germany.

The fact that he worked

for the Foreign and Propaganda Ministries,

during the Third Reich, didn't adversely affect his career.

Allied agents submitted detailed reports

about financial transfers.

Sometimes, they were even able

to smuggle people into meetings.

This espionage operation was led by Allan Dallas,

then a US agent in Switzerland,

who later rose to be head of the CIA.

He knew how to use his knowledge

of the Nazi's financial doings

to benefit his career in Washington.

(dramatic music)

(explosion booms)

When a bomb attack destroys the Berlin Reichsbank

in March 1945,

gold and currency reserves are no longer secure.

(fire crackling)

It's time to put the plan

into action quickly and thoroughly.

Everything is meticulously noted and checked

as 360 tons of gold and 300 tons of silver and banknotes

are loaded up and taken away.

Documents relating to the Reichsbank's gold

remain undiscovered in the German Central Bank

for more than 60 years

when Karl Bernd Esser finally finds them.

(Karl speaking in foreign language)

All the gold that was in the Reichsbank

was moved to Merkers or to certain depots in Bavaria.

Now the Americans see their chance.

Thanks to Operation Safe Haven

they know exactly where the gold is stored.

They arrive in the Soviet occupation zone

at the Merker's salt line in the eastern state of Thuringia

before the Soviets themselves.

They declare the Reichsbank gold to be Nazi loot

and take it with them.

They also seize other treasures they find there,

including Italian gold reserves

and gold from a national bank for Bohemia and Moravia.

(suspenseful music)

Were the hiding places in the Alps

also cleared out long ago?

(Karl speaking in foreign language)

You definitely won't find any gold

in Bavaria today.

There was a settlement document stating

how much gold the Reichsbank deposited

in the different depots.

These depots were all found largely by the Americans,

who even went across into the Soviet zone to Merkers

and quickly emptied the main depot there.

Karl Bernd Esser says it was an act of theft

because it essentially means the Germans twice repaid

their Marshall Plan loan.

Once with the Reichsbank's gold and once in Deutsche marks.

(suspenseful music)

(Karl speaking in foreign language)

The Marshall Plan

was a successful American invention

of how to trick friends without them realizing it.

If I take a thousand euros from you and you don't notice

and then I say, "I'll lend you a thousand euros

and you pay it back with a bit of interest."

You'd think, "What a nice gesture."

But in reality, I took a thousand euros from you already,

you just didn't notice.

(dramatic music)

The US intelligence services

don't only use their knowledge

and their treasures in Germany,

but also recruit Italian fascists during the Cold War.

The idea is that they will fight communism

on America's behalf.

(dramatic music)

(explosion booming)

Starting the 1960s a series of attacks

in Italy claim hundreds of lives.

The violence is initially blamed on left-wingers

but it's now known to have been the work

of right-wing radicals.

Stefano Delle Chiaie is head of the new Reich party.

He is repeatedly accused of terrorist activity

but is never convicted.

(Stefano speaking in foreign language)

Our political position

was very simple and quite clear.

It was based on historical experience,

for which we had great respect and that was fascism.

We tried to apply basic fascist values

to the reality surrounding us.

(water splashing)

In 1970, the fascist revolutionaries

and their backers want to stage a coup in Italy

and stamp out the left-wing parties.

They discuss their plans with the CIA.

(Alessandro speaking in foreign language)

We know the CIA was informed

about these plans.

On December the 7th, Delle Chiaie supporters,

the far-right Avanguardia Nazionale

and parts of the military set their plan in motion.

Their first targets are the state broadcaster

and government buildings.

The revolutionaries around Stefano Delle Chiaie

believe they are pulling the strings.

But the attempted coup

is actually being driven from elsewhere.

Although Delle Chiaie, still proudly claims responsibility.

(Stefano speaking in foreign language)

I was responsible for the coup,

morally and politically,

even if I wasn't in Italy at the time.

The commandant had prepared a perfect plan

which would have triggered a chain of commands,

starting at the Ministry of Defense.

Everything was prepared and ready.

And, had the plan been activated,

military units would have been mobilized

and would've taken control

of every strategic site in the country.

The fight against the left-wing

has a long history in Italy.

And the US intelligence services have been involved

from the very beginning.

Its influence begins with the invasion of Sicily,

when Allied soldiers fight and beat the Axis powers.

(suspenseful music)

But some Italian forces don't give up

and continue to fight on the side of the Germans until 1945.

One unit in particular is feared,

the Decima Flottiglia MAS,

the world's first frogman commander.

The Allies both fear and admire their daring operations.

The leader of the unit is Valerio Borghese,

the Black Prince.

(Alessandro speaking in foreign language)

The Decima MAS, Prince Borghese,

was probably the best trained and most highly motivated unit

in the entire fascist republic.

(suspenseful music)

It takes another two years

before World War II is won in Italy.

And when the Americans finally march into Rome,

they are welcomed as liberators,

even by the pope who shares the US fear

of a shift to the left in Italy.

(pope speaking in foreign language)

(crowd singing in foreign language)

Because the communists are gaining popularity.

(crowd singing in foreign language)

(Alessandro speaking in foreign language)

The aim of the Americans was

to keep the communists out of the government.

To keep them away from power.

CIA agent, James Jesus Angleton,

starts preparing a coup in the event

that the communists win the Italian elections.

(Alessandro speaking in foreign language)

Angleton had excellent connections in Italy.

He spoke Italian, even with the Vatican,

which back then, perhaps even now,

has the most efficient intelligence service in the world.

Angleton and Borghese became good friends.

Borghese came from the fascist movement

and founded the Fronte Nazionale

as a way of bundling the different right-wing movements.

It was all of the means of preventing shift to the left

because the left parties were gaining strength in Italy.

(audience applauding)

The communists are the archenemies of Borghese,

who almost killed him at the end of the war.

To act against the communists the CIA enlists Borghese.

(mysterious music)

(audience applauding)

Angleton succeeded in convincing the rest

of the US government that the elections of 1947, 1948

in Italy would lead to a communist government in Italy.

And so therefore the Americans

should sink millions of dollars

into disrupting these elections

and disrupting particularly the left-wing candidates

in these elections.

Operation Safe Haven pays off.

The Americans used seized Nazi loot

to finance Angleton's activities against Italy's communists.

The seized riches will never be returned

to the victims or their relatives.

The money was money, frequently,

that had been looted from Europe's Jews.

Why?

The exchange stabilization fund was set up early

during World War II

to seize Nazi assets in international trade.

It was part of the blockade of Germany.

Angleton sets up a partisan army.

This rarely seen footage shows training.

Many of the partisans are battle-tested fascists

from Borghese's frogmen.

Gladio, as the unit was called,

is under the exclusive command of the CIA.

(gun firing)

In the event that Italy democratically voted

to become socialists, there would be stay-behind networks,

underground elements that were armed and paid

and ideologically prepared to attempt

to overturn that democratically elected government.

But Gladio was called off

because the communists lost the first post-war elections.

The mood is tense as the Soviets are forced to accept

that Italy now belongs to the US fear of control.

And any hopes of a third way are dashed by Yalta.

(Alessandro speaking in foreign language)

Yalta meant the victors, or better said,

Russia, Great Britain and the US signed a treaty

in which they divided the world into future areas

of influence and shared it out amongst themselves.

Most specifically, they divided up Europe.

The treaty remained unchanged

until the collapse of the Soviet Union,

until the fall of the Berlin wall in the '80s.

Yalta puts Italy under US influence.

It's clear that in matters relating

to their political and strategic interests

the Americans will do what they see fit.

And that they will not create space

between the blocks for a third power.

(Alessandro speaking in foreign language)

In the post-Yalta world in which the borders

of the different blocks were carefully adhered to,

the respective hegemonic powers crushed any uprising.

That went for Hungary in 1956

and even more so for Berlin in 1953.

And it went for every other revolt.

And terrorism in Italy and Germany

really only served one purpose,

it was to stabilize the political status quo.

(suspenseful music)

As to the 1978 murder

of Italian Prime Minister Aldo Moro,

he was kidnapped and shot by the Red Brigades.

But numerous agents and intelligence services

were also involved in the killing.

Many Italians believed Moro was murdered

because he wanted a third way.

Other powers were also involved in the 1970 attempted coup.

Borghese and Delle Chiaie were just puppets.

(suspenseful music)

(Alessandro speaking in foreign language)

We know of a telephone call with Borghese

that took place between 1:00 and 2:00 in the morning.

And then the coup was stopped.

We also know that this call was

with a high ranking politician.

In a written statement he made before his death,

Borghese claimed that one

of Andreotti's confidantes, Bana Bea,

had called him and that he was acting on the instructions

of Andreotti who was the American's puppet at the time.

The ones really pulling the strings

are high ranking Italians.

Right-wing politician Giulio Andreotti

who was later prime minister seven times.

And Licio Gelli, head of the P2 Freemasons Lodge

and American agent.

(suspenseful music)

(Stefano speaking in foreign language)

They started to spread all kinds of lies.

We're talking now about Gelli, who blew off the coup.

We're talking about Andreotti who backed him

and who's still withholding important facts.

For example, that his friend, the public prosecutor

of the coup of the charter Borghese,

who was also Andreotti's puppet requested 28 years

in prison for me and my comrades.

You have to be careful with friends like that.

(suspenseful music)

During the attempted coup

the US military flexed its muscles.

Shortly beforehand, the Sixth US Fleet was allegedly put

on a state of alert.

Hoping to impress the CIA,

Gelli and Andreotti presented themselves to the Americans,

as influential figures capable of both mobilizing

and calling off military coups.

(dramatic music)

Fascists such as Borghese and Delle Chiaie

have to go underground.

The US intelligence services choose South America

as the most suitable place.

There, in their search for power,

the fascists join forces with dictators.

(Stefano speaking in foreign language)

Clearly we wanted to implement our ideology,

and our conviction there.

And our fight for fascism, fell on more fertile ground

in Latin America than elsewhere.

Many parties in Latin America had fascist

or national socialist roots.

But Chile is different.

In 1971, Socialist Salvador Allende is elected to power.

His Marxist politics make him enemies

and many enthusiastic followers.

This was perceived by the United States

as a tremendous threat.

Because if peaceful revolution were to take hold

that would greatly weaken

the United States ideological hold on South America.

Under the instruction

of US Secretary of State Henry Kissinger,

the CIA becomes active in Chile.

The staunch anti-communist is not content

to bank on Allende losing the next elections.

In September, 1973, General Pinochet,

supported by Italian fascists, stages a military coup.

The Americans leave them to it.

The two sides, like Pinochet, want to wipe out communism.

(ominous music)

(Stefano speaking in foreign language)

We were in contact

with Chilean comrades before the coup in Chile.

In 1974, Commandant Borghese and I were in Santiago,

where we met President Pinochet.

We started working closely together.

When we arrived in Chile,

we were greeted by President Pinochet.

In 1975, the fascists gather in Madrid

to attend the funeral of a mutual and like-minded friend,

Spanish dictator, Francisco Franco.

It's here that the cooperation between Italian fascists

and the Chilean intelligence service, DINA, is sealed.

The ringleader is none other than Stefano Delle Chiaie.

But again, his involvement

in the ensuing crimes is never proven.

The first meeting of collaborators but it's not the last.

Pinochet himself, meets with these terrorists

who have just pulled off this assassination.

And Monroe Contreras is there

and everybody is having a kind of right-wing love fest.

They then, Stefano Delle Chiaie are given permission,

apparently at that meeting

that they can set up headquarters in Chile.

So the Italians then began to collaborate with DINA.

There follows a series of murders.

(suspenseful music)

(explosion booming)

Among the targets is Allende's former Foreign Minister,

Orlando Letelier, in Washington.

But terrorism on home turf is too much

for the US which reigns Pinochet in.

(suspenseful music)

They talked about the weakness of the United States

and its ability to defeat the communist menace

and the desire of the military governments

in Latin America take the leadership internationally

to defeat the communist movement worldwide.

The scope of this is mind-blowing.

They actually refer to it as World War III.

Pinochet's junta prepares for this war.

(Friedrich speaking in foreign language)

It included the wish to own toxic gasses,

the production of biological weapons

and prisoners in Chile were killed during trials.

And the production of toxic gasses, sarin and mustard gas.

(men singing in foreign language)

The research laboratory for inhuman experiments

is located at Colonia Dignidad.

The hamlet goes from strange to sinister.

(gentle music)

(Friedrich speaking in foreign language)

Following the military coup of 1973,

Colonia Dignidad became a torture camp,

a training camp for the secret service, the DINA.

Complete with torture school, an arms smuggling center,

a center for alternative arms production

and a place for the DINA

to communicate with the outside world.

This part of Colonia Dignidad

is sealed off with a death strip.

The underground torture chambers are well hidden

so that from the outside, it looks like a farm.

Anyone who wants to be fooled, could be.

(Stefano speaking in foreign language)

I was impressed by the compound.

It impressed me because somehow I'm a dreamer.

I'd always dreamed of setting up a center for my comrades.

I wanted to give them the chance to relax

and take a break from their fight.

I'd been thinking about something like that.

(suspenseful music)

Far from being just a recuperation center

for Nazis, Colonia Dignidad is also used

to produce biological and chemical weapons.

Chile's intelligence service

needs untraceable, deadly toxins.

There is a shortlist of people that have been confirmed

to have been murdered using sarin gas.

A German doctor is one

of those experimenting at Colonia Dignidad.

(Friedrich speaking in foreign language)

The doctor at Colonia Dignidad, Hartmut Hopp,

who fled the Chilean courts to Krefeld

had a devil's workshop containing some 400 toxins.

Among them were poisons to inhale,

poisons deadly to the touch,

poisons that kill when consumed with food.

It was a wild arsenal and nobody knows exactly

who fell prey to those substances.

(dramatic music)

The Cold War Nazis don't only support Pinochet

but other dictators in South America as well.

The CIA gives them free reign.

(dramatic music)

(people chattering)

In 1980, the military stages a coup in Bolivia.

Known as the Cocaine Coup it brings the mafia,

under General Garcia Meza, to power.

(Garcia speaking in foreign language)

Pulling the strings in the background

is a German, Nazi general Klaus Barbie.

A fascist companion, waxes lyrical.

(Stefano speaking in foreign language)

I met him when I was in Bolivia.

He's a great character.

Very intelligent, very capable, great integrity.

(dramatic music)

Klaus Barbie, had won himself the name,

The Butcher of Lyon, for his brutal treatment

of members of the resistance opposing German occupation

during World War II.

(dramatic music)

After the war, Barbie was hired

by the American intelligence services.

There were different ways

that senior SS and SD officers survived the war.

But they do share a common pattern.

And the pattern is something that I call entrepreneurism

or intelligence entrepreneurism,

in which they take whatever assets

they can lay there hands on and attempt to sell these

or to encourage intelligence services to invest in them.

(suspenseful music)

(gun firing)

Klaus Barbie is a valuable agent

for the Americans.

He uses his knowledge of communists

and the resistance to buy his own freedom.

(Andreas speaking in foreign language)

The Americans did everything they could

to ensure that the resistance fighters didn't come

to power after the war.

And Barbie was important for them

because he was able to show the Americans

that he knew the network of collaborators

who had worked with the Germans

in the occupied areas and in Vichy.

It made him really valuable.

With this he had an insight into the blackmail-ability

of the entire French political scene.

(dramatic music)

The Americans initially hide the war criminals

in Germany and then in South America.

They understood particularly the bloody politics

of certain types of intelligence.

They understood colonial war.

They had a mentality that was well-suited for colonial war,

it's because they believed themselves to be,

when all is said and done, uber superior.

And thus, were willing to take the lives

of a great many people that they considered

to be inferior for racial or ethnic reasons.

Barbie ultimately becomes

an intelligence service adviser in South America.

In the '70s Operation Condor begins.

The American Operation Condor, was a alliance,

if you will, between the intelligence agencies

of several South American governments

that at that time were run by fascist

or extreme right-wing parties with well documented histories

of disappearances, abuse, murder of prisoners and so forth.

And that those regimes found Klaus Barbie

to be a very compatible agent for their operations.

A total of 50,000 people

from the alliance nations are murdered.

Once again, the CIA is involved.

(suspenseful music)

I call it the red light green light phenomenon.

The United States was publicly

defending human rights and privately telling these regimes

that what they were doing was okay.

Until they defeated the left,

they should go ahead and do it.

Secretary of State Henry Kissinger was seen

as a driving force behind the CIA policy.

France, Chile and Argentina summon him

to answer questions about human rights violations.

In 2007, Uruguay requests his extradition.

It gradually becomes clear Kissinger was covering

for Operation Condor, even for the death squads.

Among them, is a well-known fascist,

Stefano Delle Chiaie in Bolivia,

leading a troop of mercenaries.

(Friedrich speaking in foreign language)

These Grooms of Death, as they were called,

supported the Cocaine Mafia that staged the coup in Bolivia.

And they reaped the rewards.

They surged through many Latin American countries

starting counter-revolutions.

Killing, torturing and turning a profit in the process.

The Grooms of Death are financed

by the cocaine trade,

a sector entwined with secret services worldwide.

(dramatic music)

The drugs trade is an ideal source of money.

Everything is top secret

and those involved can be blackmailed.

(suspenseful music)

(Andreas speaking in foreign language)

The war against drugs is basically a means

of tricking the public.

Because the real drug trade is run

by privileged individuals.

People who are protected by the intelligence services,

who can grow any crop they like, without any risk

and sell them in America, Europe, wherever.

The profit margin is astronomical.

And the intelligence services siphon off

what they need for their operations.

Klaus Barbie perfected the cocaine trade

in Bolivia among other things.

(Friedrich speaking in foreign language)

Barbie made impressions systematic.

He abolished the system of arbitrary beating and brutality

and introduced systematic torture

and an organized correctional system.

And that was his doom.

Because it meant people became aware of him.

And then he was extradited.

In Lyon in May 1987,

four years after his extradition,

Klaus Barbie was sentenced to lifelong imprisonment.

He died in prison in 1991.

(dramatic music)

(suspenseful music)

Very few Nazis were ever sentenced.

Paul Dickopf, the long serving president of the BKA,

enjoyed the trust of leading politicians until his death.

(suspenseful music)

Although a former SS man and Nazi spy,

Dickopf was hired by the Americans,

even before the end of the war.

(Wilhelm speaking in foreign language)

At some point,

he saw Germany wasn't going to win,

so he hung his flag in the wind

and decided it was time to switch sides.

His friend, Francois Genoud,

another Nazi agent, helps him.

They know each other from Switzerland

where they even lived together.

(suspenseful music)

(Andreas speaking in foreign language)

Genoud was a major banker, a convinced Nazi

and a big fan of Hitler's.

And he was probably the one

who saved Nazi and SS fortunes, after 1945.

Genoud published Goebbels' diaries

and made a lot of money as a result.

He uses the proceeds to finance the defense

for Adolf Eichmann and Klaus Barbie.

(dramatic music)

He's friends with the terrorists, Carlos

and Wadie Haddad, who was also a KGB agent

and is responsible for numerous brutal attacks.

But Dickopf's connection don't damage his career.

On the contrary,

the CIA and its head Adonis advance his career.

(Dieter speaking in foreign language)

His connection

to the American intelligence services contributed

to him being employed in the German Interior Ministry.

And then, leading the BKA,

Germany's Federal Office of Criminal Investigation,

even though he had an SS background.

And I think, although it is just my opinion,

that there was a CIA objective behind his promotion.

I think they wanted to see him in such a position.

(suspenseful music)

Dickopf passed on information

about German politics especially concerning Willy Brandt.

In confidential meetings the BKA president was party

to top secret intelligence regarding Brandt's Ostpolitik.

(suspenseful music)

It was information from a government whose policy

of detente was viewed with skepticism in the US.

How much did Paul Dickopf really know?

(man speaking in foreign language)

(Dieter speaking in foreign language)

He took part in ministry meetings

and was involved at a political level.

But to what extent he compromised the sovereignty

of West Germany in terms of what he gave away

no one can say.

Dickopf is a window into the highest level security

and intelligence issues as viewed

by the German government of that period.

This is high level, elite insight

into the security apparatus of a different country.

In CIA files, Dickopf is described

as a unilateral agent as working exclusively for one side.

Was he simply a traitor?

(Wilhelm speaking in foreign language)

I have a problem with the word traitor

in the context of Dickopf

because for him it was everyday life.

He was committed to both sides.

There was almost certainly a kind of gratitude

towards the Americans as well.

(dramatic music)

How badly did Dickopf damage Germany?

In 1972, his friend, Genoud helps to hijack a Lufthansa jet.

The action generates 15 million marks

in ransom for Palestinian coffers.

Money that would be used for further terrorist activity.

(people chattering)

In 1972, Genoud also finances the Munich massacre

of the Israeli Olympic team.

The sporting event,

which is supposed to be Germany's big, prestigious moment,

becomes one of the country's biggest ever catastrophes

(engine roaring)

when 11 Israeli athletes are murdered as the world looks on.

(suspenseful music)

(explosion booming)

(Andreas speaking in foreign language)

Genoud was close

to Middle East terrorist circles.

Some of which worked with Mossad.

It's a very, very strange structure.

As head of Interpol,

Dickopf is supposed to fight such terrorists financed

by his friend, Genoud.

During his time in office there's a rise

in the number of attacks and hijackings.

But Dickopf says Interpol is powerless to stop them.

(Paul speaking in foreign language)

You know that Article three of our statute

prevents the organization from any direct intervention.

But that should encourage other countries

to be much more active in sharing their intelligence.

(interviewer speaking in foreign language)

So, just because Interpol can't intervene

it doesn't mean other countries can't take bilateral action.

Bilaterally and multilaterally.

They can do whatever they want,

as long as they don't involve Interpol.

(Andreas speaking in foreign language)

At the same time as 15 and later 30 planes

were being hijacked in a single year,

the Western states decide

that solving terrorist crimes is not Interpol's job.

It's outrageous.

Dickopf was in contact with Genoud

who he's always meeting up with.

And Genoud finances the people who hijack the planes.

And at the same time Interpol says, "It's not our job."

Did the CIA know

about Dickopf's contacts with Genoud?

Documents prove that they did.

Dickopf himself told the CIA

he had known him since the Second World War.

(suspenseful music)

But the open files in Washington don't seem to contain

all the information the CIA claimed

from Dickopf and other Nazis.

The CIA had a conscious, deliberate campaign

that was based in their general council's office

to obstruct the release of these records

to the maximum extent possible.

And most particularly to obstruct release

of records that dealt with relationships

between informants and agents and the CIA.

Which was the exact point of this, okay?

Christopher Simpson was a member

of the commission that negotiated with the CIA

over the release of the Nazi files.

(suspenseful music)

His experiences are sobering.

In one of the most important categories

that fits into that description

is what's called foreign government information.

And that's information in which they have obtained

either legally or illegally from a separate government

about that government's affairs.

This is why the,

and you'll see this in a Skorzeny file,

you'll see it in the Dickopf file,

you'll see it in the Klaus Barbie file,

that to this day most people aren't familiar

with this reality but there are nevertheless continued

to be withheld records in those files.

This policy prevents historians

and journalists from getting to the bottom

of important espionage operations.

(dramatic music)

(Andreas speaking in foreign language)

The CIA is a global service

with a huge budget and incredible possibilities

because it also benefits from the drugs trade.

And it exerts influence in all kinds of countries.

All over Europe, it influences politics,

the perception of the enemy, public opinion.

It engages in psychological warfare.

So, if I have an organization like the CIA, at my disposal

I can push a democracy in the way

the Italian democracy was pushed.

And in the way that certain political processes here

might have been influenced.

(Wilhelm speaking in foreign language)

An intelligence service

is not the Boy Scouts.

Many intelligence service activities

from the Cold War era have still not been opened

to public scrutiny.

This includes the operations which turned war criminals

and fascists into collaborators.

(dramatic music)