All language subtitles for The.Devils.Confession.S01E02.720p.AMZN.WEBRip.x264-GalaxyTV

NARRATOR [in English]:
Previously on

The Devil's
The Lost Eichmann Tapes...

Adolf Eichmann evades capture
by the Allies for 15 years,

fleeing to Argentina.

Following Eichmann's capture
in 1960,

Nazi journalist
Willem Sassen takes advantage
of the media frenzy

and sells excerpts
of the interviews
toLife Magazine.

The publication of
the Life Magazineinterview

I think
was an astonishing moment.

Almost worldwide sensation.

MAN [speaking German]

NARRATOR [in English]:
This enrages Eichmann's
family and supporters,

who demand Sassen
turn over the tapes.

When the Eichmann story
blows into the public,

the Nazis who were
still around in Argentina,

they moved against my father,

because my father betrayed,
in their eyes.

But fearing
for his life, Sassen denies
knowing their whereabouts.

MAN [speaking Hebrew]

Nazis have
always denied their role
in the Holocaust.

[speaking German]

NARRATOR [in English]:
After the war,
many fled Europe,

including the architect
of the Final Solution -

Adolf Eichmann.

UKI GOÑ
He's practically the last

important Nazi who arrived

in Argentina after the war.

While hiding
in Argentina,

Eichmann records
a series of interviews

with Nazi journalist
Willem Sassen,

admitting his role
in the Holocaust.

Sassen came up
with this crazy idea

that he would interview the
mastermind of the Holocaust.

This is him boasting
about what he did.

The tapes are rediscovered,
and now for the first time,

we'll hear Eichmann
admitting his crimes,

a true Nazi confession.

With so many people
seeking the tapes,

Sassen knows he needs
a safe hiding place

and gives them to an old ally
before fleeing to Paraguay.

UKI GOÑThere was
a former Luftwaffe officer

who had also escaped
to Argentina after the war.

This man called Dieter Menge.

And Menge made a lot of money.

And Menge had
a very large house
outside Buenos Aires,

a meeting place for Nazis.

They actually had
a flag post where they raised
the Nazi flag,

they saw Nazi movies,
they toasted to the Fuührer.

Maybe he made
a deal with Sassen to sell
the tapes to somebody

and they split the money.

You have to bear in mind,
you know, these are Nazi
adventurers, ex-SS men.

These are people
who had no problem with lying

and they had no problem
with lying to each other.

Menge takes no risks
and buries the tapes

in his backyard
outside of Buenos Aires.

Eichmann's taped recollections
were self incriminating.

And if accepted at the trial,

Eichmann admitted
the charges against him.

But Eichmann and
Sassen aren't the only ones
interested in the tapes.

Israeli Attorney General
Gideon Hausner,

knows the tapes will prove,
beyond a shadow of a doubt,

that Eichmann's
repeated claims that he
was simply following orders

are nothing more than lies.

The governments of Israel,
West Germany and the US

also have a variety
of interests that make
the very existence

of the tapes problematic.

The BND,
the West German foreign
intelligence service,

had great concern
about what Eichmann

had told Sassen
and would tell the Israelis.

It wasn't simply the trial
of the century.

It was the trial
of the century

at the height of the Cold War.

With the
whereabouts of the recordings
still in question,

Attorney General Hausner
is forced to rely
on the excerpts

published inLife Magazine

as evidence
of Eichmann's guilt.

If I were Hausner,
I would have been pleased.

Because it's showing the world
who this man was.

It's sort of tilling the soil
before we plant.

[speaking Hebrew]

LAWRENCE DOUGLAS [in English]:
You could say it simplifies

some of the work of the
prosecution

in that it complicates
any kind of defense that
Eichmann is going to mount,

because it sounds
as if he is now acknowledging

his participation
in this genocide,

and doing so without
the remotest expression
of regret.

[speaking Hebrew]

[speaking German]

[speaking Hebrew]

[speaking German]

[in English]
Eichmann lied to 2.5 million
Jews into their own death

and we seriously believe
that we can tell

whether he is telling
the truth or not?

Forget it.

[speaking Hebrew]

[speaking German]

[speaking Hebrew]

[speaking German]

BETTINA STANGNETH
[in English]: Eichmann is used
to being in such a situation.

He is fighting a war
on several fronts.

He has the judges,
the prosecution, the audience,

and he needs
to figure out his role.

Of course he chose the role
that he had already performed
for Sassen, but in reverse.

To Sassen, he always said:

"I really wasn't
a little bureaucrat!"

And it is precisely this role

of the annoyingly bureaucratic
and petty-minded guy

that he chooses to play
in court.

Eichmann in Jerusalem
is a man without a uniform.

He is a man
in a slightly oversized suit.

Eichmann knows
how to appear different,

with attitude,
posture, clothing,

glasses, and haircut.

He knows how to look harmless.

Eichmann said
he was a clerk who always
cooperated

and did
what he was told to do.

The psychiatrist
who examined him said
that it was all a mask.

He didn't really try
to please people.

That was how he presented
himself to the world.

To determine
his fitness for trial,

Hausner asks
for Eichmann to be evaluated
by a psychiatrist.

It was a tool,
trying to figure out
who these people are

who committed murder
on such a scale,
in such a way,

with such composure.

Maybe we can learn something
that will be of relevance
in the trial.

The psychiatrist
recounts Eichmann's childhood
as Eichmann had told him.

He said that
his father was very strict.
He would often slap him.

He was scared of his father
and he learned from his father
that he must not be weak.

He realized that he should
never show weakness

and he did everything
with such loyalty
and precision

so that any inkling
of the fear in his life
wouldn't come out.

The childhood and youth
of Adolf Eichmann lack
any aura or glamour.

He has no profession
until he enlists to the SS.

His senses tell him
that there in the SS

he will have
a significant career.

When you got
this black uniform,

everyone was looking at you

with respect, also with fear,

and you were on the top

of the pyramid
of the German people.

You were part of an elite
even if you were a worker

or had no school,

no university study,
and so on.

Eichmann becomes
an important man.

He has an official
car, he has a driver,
he has secretaries,

and he must have dreamt about
all of this his entire life.

His personal frustration
was the reason for the zeal
and passion

to achieve
at least one big achievement.

And this big achievement
is connected

to the persecution
of European Jews.

The Nazis were obsessed
with their racial theories

about the inferiority
of the Jewish people.

The Nazis
had this insane belief

that a person's ethnic group
or the national group
you were part of

or the religious group
you were part of
were different,

this were the eugenics.

And he really believed

that Jews
were inherently different

from Germans.

In late 1934,
Eichmann is appointed
to the new department

responsible for
Jewish affairs at the SS.

The agency is tasked
with surveillance

and terrorizing enemies
of the Nazi-German state.

Eichmann
was devising systems

for identifying Jews,

for following Jews
in their activities,
for monitoring,

trying to work out for the SS

a systematic way
of tracking Jews.

During his conversations
with Sassen,

Eichmann takes the liberty
of disclosing

one of Adolf Hitler's
biggest secrets.

[speaking German]

NARRATOR [in English]:
Eichmann not only
tracks the Jews,

but is also responsible
for forcing them

to emigrate
to different countries.

Looking for
potential destinations,

he visits Palestine,
then under British rule,

but is quickly detained
and expelled.

In his report about the trip,

he describes
his anti-Semitic views,

which he also expresses
to Sassen.

[speaking German]

[speaking Hebrew]

[speaking German]

LAWRENCE DOUGLAS [in English]:
Eichmann characterizes himself
in all sorts of ways.

"Look, I was never anti-Semite

and I harbor no ill will
towards the Jewish people."

The Sassen interviews

and the Sassen tapes
gave a lie to that.

[speaking Hebrew]

[speaking German]

[speaking Hebrew]

[speaking German]

NARRATOR [in English]:
Dr. Robert Servatius
is chosen

by the family
to defend Eichmann,

and in the interest
of staging a fair trial,

the Israeli government
agrees to pay his salary.

He is a well-known attorney
in Germany after representing

a number
of Nazi war criminals
at the Nuremberg Trials.

Servatius was a respectful
defense lawyer

at the same time that he tried
to defend his client

and he tried to rely
on the defense that his client
himself supplied.

Namely, that he was just a cog
in the machine.

Servatius
has to defend his client

and that can only be done
if you know what to expect.

And Eichmann, the idiot,
doesn't tell his lawyer

that in Argentina
he gave an interview

that was
a thousand pages long.

Partially, Eichmann lied
without end.

Attorney Robert Servatius
has stated

that he will withdraw from
the defense of Adolf Eichmann

if it turns out
that the claims attributed
to his client

byLife Magazine are genuine.

Servatius also added
that he would check

the credibility
of Eichmann's confession
with his brother,

Dr. Robert Eichmann,
in Linz, Austria.

Naturally, they all wanted
their friend, husband, brother

to be properly defended.

And Eichmann's extended family
was always ready to help.

They stayed in touch with him
and still lived in Austria.

But here, too,
it's unknown who

we are dealing with exactly.

The Eichmann family
in Austria, at least in part,

benefited from
their brother's career.

Eichmann's father, who joined
the Nazi party on the same day
as his son,

couldn't explain after the war
why he owned several things

that formerly belonged
to Jewish people.

And in this respect,
the family was clearly a part
of the inner circle.

Despite his misgivings,
Servatius is persuaded

by the Eichmann family
to continue defending him

and in exchange, they agreed
to cover his many expenses.

The family also passes
encoded messages

through Servatius
to Eichmann in Israel.

[Servatius speaking German
on phone]

NARRATOR [in English]:
Eichmann's personal
conferences with his lawyer

lead to a secret meeting
of Israeli cabinet members.

The government
session focuses on

whether or not to allow
a meeting in private

between Servatius
and Eichmann.

At the meeting,
it is decided that Eichmann
and Servatius

should no longer be allowed
to meet in private.

But, Isser Harel, Head of
the Israeli Secret Service,

informs everyone
that, in fact, the meetings
are being secretly recorded

and confirms that Servatius
is passing encrypted messages
to his client.

[Eichmann speaking German
on phone]

[Servatius speaking on phone]

[Eichmann speaking on phone]

GADI WARSHA [in English]:
Isser just says,
"We listened in on them

and they don't know it,"
and moves on.

[Servatius speaking German
on phone]

NARRATOR [in English]:
Hausner himself
reassures Servatius

that his attorney-client
meetings are not being
listened to.

He knows
the illegal wiretapping
might allow him

to obtain vital information
about Sassen's recordings.

[Isser speaking Hebrew
on recording]

BETTINA STANGNETH
[in English]: The "oak tree"
we are talking about

is of great significance
to Germans.

When one says
that an oak tree won't fall,

it always means that
the person shall
stand straight,

that he will overcome
what he faces,

that everything
will be resolved.

With this code,
Sassen was saying to Eichmann,

"Don't worry,
I hid the tapes."

With Hausner unable
to locate the Sassen tapes,

the court's ultimate decision
on whether or not to admit

the Life Magazine article
into evidence

will be crucial to him
proving Eichmann's guilt.

[speaking Hebrew]

HANNA YABLONKA [in English]:
Eichmann is right, of course.

He claimed
that what a journalist does

with his freedom of speech

does not apply to him.

There was no way that Hausner

could actually verify

the truthfulness
of the Life Magazine article

and the court is trying
to demonstrate that look,

we are a court of law.

Even though it looks like
highly probative evidence,

we don't
really have the resources
to authenticate it

and so unfortunately
we can't accept it in
as evidence.

[speaking Hebrew]

LAWRENCE DOUGLAS [in English]:
Sassen was not about

to cooperate
with the Israelis.

The contract that he signed
with Life Magazine

permitted Lifeto supply
some of the materials

to some other
media organizations,

but specifically barred
Life Magazine

from sharing anything
with the Israelis.

So it raises the question
of how do you get hold
of this material?

[speaking Hebrew]

TIMOTHY NAFTALI [in English]:
This is a document showing

that the assistant editor
of Life Magazine

gave the CIA
an advanced copy of the text

of their article on Eichmann.

What interests Americans

is the propaganda value

of what Eichmann is saying
in Life Magazine.

They were worried
about how the East Germans

and the Soviets
would use this.

With the battle lines
of the Cold War

literally running through
the middle of Germany,

many worried about
what sensitive material

the Eichmann
recordings contained.

This was not
just about history.

It wasn't just about memory.
It wasn't just about justice.

It was also about politics

and foreign policy
and security matters,

and it was also about
the climax of the Cold War.

To get a sense
of where the Cold War was

at the moment of the trial,

keep in mind
that the Berlin Wall goes up

while Eichmann is on trial.

[speaking German]

TIMOTHY NAFTALI [in English]:
There were
two Germanys warring

for the right to be Germany,

but also for the right
to be the Germany

that came after Hitler.

Germans were very concerned

that this trial was going
to be a source of all sorts
of embarrassment,

demonstrating that there
are a lot of Nazis

who remained
in positions of high power
within Germany itself.

REPORTER [speaking German]

TIMOTHY NAFTALI [in English]:
The East Germans saw this

as an opportunity
to remind the world

that, yeah,
there's only one Eichmann,

but that doesn't mean
there's only one bad Nazi left

who deserves justice.

And some of them worked
for Konrad Adenauer.

Konrad Adenauer
is the first Chancellor
of West Germany

after World War II,
and is charged with leading
his country

from the post-war chaos
into the modern era.

The person
with perhaps the most to lose

if the tapes are heard
during Eichmann's trial

is Adenauer's right-hand man,
Hans Globke,

who oversaw the plan
for the enforcement

of the Nuremberg Race Laws
later carried out
by Eichmann.

Hans Globke is one
of the most powerful men
in West Germany.

He is the closest advisor
to Adenauer.

Now we know that as a lawyer,

a bureaucrat
in the Nazi system,

he helped draft
the Nuremberg Laws,

which established
the "legal basis"

for discrimination
against German Jews.

Why would Adenauer employ
someone like Globke?

It was an open offer
to all German people:

We integrate all of you,
even with a Nazi past.

We're not going
to lock you all up.

You may continue working
within our establishment.

Since Israel
is trying Eichmann,

one cannot overlook
the Nuremberg Laws,

because it's obvious
that Eichmann will say,

"What do you want from me?

I applied the laws
of the Third Reich."

And who made these laws?
Hans Globke.

This was a major problem
for Adenauer.

And just as East Germany
went into overdrive

to start
pumping out propaganda,

West Germany was worried
about what Eichmann might say.

The BND was very key

in trying to make sure
that they had an ear on

what was going on in Israel,

tried to manipulate things
a little under the table.

Eichmann's connections
to not only Globke,

but other
former Nazi officials
who were integrated

into the new
West German government
could be exposed

if Sassen's recordings
are played in court.

Hausner knows that this
is against the interest
of the West German government

and therefore against
the interest of his own
government as well.

Hausner is aware
that Ben-Gurion,

against strong opposition
from within the country,

and despite
protests and riots
led by Holocaust survivors,

is negotiating
with West Germany
to support Israel.

Three months
before the trial took place,

Ben-Gurion met Adenauer
in New York.

He had a clear interest
for the sake of Israel

to establish relations
with Germany.

It was an encounter
of vested interests -

Israel desperately
needed support

and West Germany
was in desperate need
of rehabilitation.

For someone to say
that West Germany
is different,

that it is not Nazi Germany.

I said, in the Knesset,

in the Israeli parliament,
last summer,

that Germany of today
is not the Germany
of yesterday.

The story
of the Eichmann affair
from the Israeli perspective

is a nostalgic, heroic,
a very romantic story,

how David
demanded justice from
the already defeated Goliath.

But this is nothing
but a shadow boxing,

a smoke screen
that conceals the true story.

And the true story
is the Israeli-German
nuclear project.

Once a decision is made
that Israel will launch
a nuclear project,

there are things
that have to be done.

It demands
a certain technology,

certain materials,

and first and foremost,

a lot, a lot of money.

Money that
the newly established State
of Israel doesn't have.

Very quickly, David Ben-Gurion

and Shimon Peres,
his political partner,

realize that
the way to continue
with the nuclear project

is by partnering
with De Gaulle's France

and Adenauer's Germany.

Adenauer and Strauss,
his defense minister,

put a gun on the table,
so to say.

You want us to continue
funding the nuclear project?

So do not mention the name
Hans Globke at the trial.

And that
certainly was communicated

from Ben-Gurion
to Gideon Hausner.

I don't think we should be
entirely surprised

that there was some kind
of, what we might say,

cross-fertilization
between Ben-Gurion

and the Attorney General
of Israel.

Ben-Gurion tried
to prevent the prosecutor

from submitting a document
at trial

that shows
that Globke took part

in a meeting
with Eichmann's representative

where they're talking
about seizing property.

This is
a very important document.

Hausner comes
to Ben-Gurion and says,
"I have this document."

Ben-Gurion says, "Perhaps
don't make it public."

And Hausner says,
"I can't not make it public."

And Ben-Gurion has no choice.

Then they even decide
to notify Adena