Original subtitles

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