All language subtitles for The.Devils.Confession.S01E03.1080p.AMZN.WEB-DL.DDP5.1.H.264-CMRG

ADOLF [in German]

LAWRENCE [in English]:
Eichmann is something
of a logistical mastermind

and he does this
with full awareness

that the result of deporting
these Jewish persons

to these killing centers
is that they're going
to be killed.

[clangs]

NARRATOR: Previously
onThe Devil's Confession:

The Lost Eichmann's Tapes.

Israeli Attorney General
Gideon Hausner

is determined
to find the tapes

Willem Sassen recorded
with Adolf Eichmann

to prove he is the architect

of the "Final Solution
to the Jewish Question."

Faced with the suspected
interference

from the West German,
Israeli, and US governments

in his attempts
to secure the tapes,

Hausner manages to somehow

obtain transcripts
of the recordings

that include notes
from Eichmann.

But will the court allow them
to be admitted into evidence?

GIDEON [in German]

MAN [in German]

Adolf Eichmann.

NARRATOR [in English]:
Nazis have always denied
their role in the Holocaust.

[in German]

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

including the architect
of the Final Solution-

Adolf Eichmann.

LAWRENCE: He's practically
the last important Nazi

who arrived in Argentina
after the war.

NARRATOR:
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.

[light switch clicks on]

NARRATOR:
The tapes are rediscovered.

And now for the first time,

we'll hear Eichmann
admitting his crimes,

a true Nazi confession.

[in German]

GIDEON [in Hebrew]

[in German]

NARRATOR [in English]:
Eichmann denies that the
transcripts are his words,

challenging Hausner
to produce
the original recordings.

ADOLF [in German]

[in English]
Eichmann plays full risk

and is 100% sure that the
tapes will never be heard

because he knows
what else is on these tapes.

NARRATOR: Hausner
must convince the court

of the validity
of the transcripts

before they can be
admitted into evidence.

TIMOTHY:
We know that the tapes exist,

because they exist
to this day.

Did the Israeli government
know the tapes existed?

And so the mystery,
the enduring mystery,

is why the people
that had access to the tapes

didn't tell the prosecutors
that those tapes existed.

NARRATOR: As Hausner waits
for a ruling on the
transcripts' admission,

the trial continues
in Jerusalem.

And the Attorney General
pursues a new strategy

to prove that Eichmann
is not just a simple
bureaucrat,

but also a cold-blooded
murderer himself.

[in Hebrew]

[in English] On some level,
Hausner still found it

necessary to try to add:

"And yes, he killed someone
with his own hands."

[in German]

LAWRENCE [in English]:
Eichmann only really becomes
very agitated

in really rebutting
that claim.

So he's really passionate
about saying,

"I didn't kill anyone
with my own hands."

So I-I'm willing to give him
the benefit of the doubt

that he didn't beat anyone
to death with his own hands.

And ultimately, the judges
did not accept that.

But that has nothing to do

with, again,
the kind of nature

of bureaucratic
responsibility,

which Hausner
himself recognizes

as the key crime
that he's responsible for.

MICHAEL [in German]

NARRATOR [in English]:
On the tapes, Eichmann refers
to the same man,

the commander of the
Auschwitz extermination camp,

Rudolf Hoöss, as a role model.

ADOLF [in German]

[in Hebrew]

NARRATOR [in English]:
Hausner learns
from the Sassen transcripts

that Eichmann met Hoöss
in Budapest.

It is in Hungary
where Eichmann commits

perhaps
his most heinous crime-

the mass murder
of Hungarian Jews
towards the end of the war.

HANNA: Actually, you could
conduct a trial solely

around the Hungarian affair.

Doing so would be
quite convincing

that the trial
is a fair trial.

Nobody would say any criticism

about the handling
of the trial and its outcome.

[in German]

[birds chirping]

HANNA [in English]: Hungary
was a relatively safe place
for Jews

during Second World War
until May of 1944.

In Hungary still lives
the largest community,

untouched, about 800,000
Jews,

and they are convinced
that they will come out
of the war

completely unharmed.

[bomb whistling]

[explosion]

HANNA: The Soviet army
was standing
at the Hungarian border.

They were ready to cross
the mountains into Hungary.

What is clear at that point

is that Germany
is going to lose this war.

For the Hungarian Jews,
there was so much hope.

DEBORAH: Eichmann comes in

and he organizes

he deportation
of Hungarian Jews.

ELEONORE:
The people he brought with him

were also all
experienced deporters.

They had deported Jews
from all over Europe,

and they knew how to do it.

And they also knew
that the Hungarian government

would play along with them,

the marionettes.

DEBORAH:
He gets Hungarian railways,

the Hungarian militia,
the Hungarian police.

NARRATOR:
Nazi law requires Jews

in all communities across
the occupied territories

to form a Judenrat,

a Jewish council
of local leaders.

Eichmann then sets
about gaining the trust

of these Jewish
community leaders

and puts pressure on them

to help
with the deportations.

HANNA: The Eichmann system
is first of all
to use pressure

to help him
organize deportations.

DEBORAH:
When he arrives in Budapest,

he has a meeting
with the leaders of the
Hungarian Jewish community.

He says to them,

"You know, you have to wear
the yellow star

and you have to pay
for it yourself,

but if you do what I say,

everything will be okay."

I met a woman,

she remembers her father
coming home from the meeting

and saying to her mother,

"We can work with this man."

WILLEM [in German]

EVA [in English]:
Most of these Jewish families
from the countryside

believed that it could not
happen with them.

They will be deported
for work in Germany

and they prepared
themselves also that way,

so if you see
what they brought,

uh, these 50-kilogram
packages,

for example, a doctor
prepared himself as a doctor.

-[chattering]
-And then,

of course, they believed
that they will work
as a doctor in Germany.

Forced labor, but still work.

[indistinct chattering]

I never ever heard

about a letter to the mayor

or to the school director

asking, "What happened
with my Jewish neighbors?"

ANDRAS: We must remember it

as the most shameful event
in Hungarian history.

Such a united effort
for that single purpose

to deport and transport

so many Hungarian

fellow citizens
from this country.

GIDEON [in German]

NARRATOR [in English]:
During the trial, Eichmann

adamantly
denies responsibility

for the massacre
of Hungary's Jews.

But on the tapes,
Eichmann does not
dispute his role

and admits
that the deportations
happened quickly.

WILLEM [in German]

HANNA [in English]:
My own mother

arrived in Auschwitz
in September of 1944.

She didn't know
what is that place.

Where did she arrive to?

We have an album,

the Auschwitz album,

which has pictures
of one of the transports
from Hungary.

You see people
very well-dressed,

standing in a very
idyllic forest

like on a lovely
Sunday picnic.

They are standing in circles.
they are sitting
on the ground.

Some of them are laughing.

The gap between
what you see in the pictures

and what you know
that will happen
in the next half an hour,

it is a completely
classical illustration

of the way Eichmann

cheated his victims

to believe that no harm
will happen to them.

MARTIN [in German]

NARRATOR [in English]:
To prove that Eichmann
played a key role in Hungary,

Hausner calls witnesses
to testify

that knew Eichmann
during that time.

[in Hebrew]

RONI [in English]: Only once
during the trial did someone
from the gallery cry out:

"You, the Jewish leadership,
you saved yourselves.

You ran away."

NARRATOR:
The man crying out from the
crowd during the testimony

is no accident.

He accuses
Hungarian community leaders

of collaborating
with the Nazis

and abandoning their people.

RONI:
Gideon Hausner's great fear

was that the trial
would be riddled

with accounts
between the Jews
and themselves.

There were Jews
who collaborated
with the Nazis.

There's no hiding that.

ADOLF [in German]

NARRATOR [in English]:
On the tapes,
Eichmann mentions

various Jewish leaders.

Among them
is Israel Kasztner,

a Hungarian community leader
and representative
of the Zionist movement

that will become
the Israeli government.

The story of Kasztner
and the accusations
against him,

both during and after
the war,

are so controversial

that the mention of his name

is probably something
Ben-Gurion and his government

would prefer to keep out
of the Eichmann trial.

The image of Kasztner hovers
over Eichmann's trial.

LAWRENCE:
Kasztner arranged for a train

of around 1,600
prominent Hungarian Jews,

including members
of his own family,

to basically, um,
go to Switzerland.

And one of the questions
that, uh, arose

was whether Kasztner
was a collaborator
with the devil.

NARRATOR: The devil
in question is Eichmann.

After the war,
Kastner is accused
by many Jewish survivors

of collaborating
with the Nazis

to keep the nature
of the deportations a secret

in exchange for the freedom
of those he managed to save.

There are Jews in Hungary,

survivors to this day
and certainly their offspring,

who feel that Kasztner
could have warned them
and didn't.

Kasztner insisted he did warn,
he did tell in the underground

and that he did save
more Jews
than anybody else saved,

more Jews than Schindler.

And this had become
a cause célèbre

in the first years
of the State of Israel,

because it raised the question
of dealing with the devil.

SUZANNE [in Hebrew]

[in English]
We haven't yet heard, have we,

what happened
to these Jews from Hungary?

NARRATOR: Later,
at the Nuremberg Trials,

Kasztner testifies

on behalf of accused Nazis.

When asked
why he would do such a thing,

Kasztner astonishes everyone
by admitting
that he'd done so

at the request
of the provisional
Israeli government.

But many deny
Kasztner's claims.

SUZZANE [in Hebrew]

[in English] It is clear that
Ben-Gurion is denying this.

The leadership
of the settlement
would not protect people

who were involved
in the murder of Jews
in Europe.

It's unfathomable,
it's unforgivable.

NARRATOR: Kasztner feels
abandoned by the Israeli
government,

knowing they fear
he will reveal the reason
for his testimony.

On the night
between March 3rd and 4th,
when he returned to his home,

three assassins were waiting
outside the building

-and shot him.
-[gunfire]

[ambulance in a distance]

Ten days later,
he passed away.

[in Hebrew]

NARRATOR [in English]:
Kasztner dies,
never revealing the reason

for his testimony
in Nuremberg.

The secrets he knew
about the Israeli government

are thought
to be safe forever.

But just four years later,
the risk of the secrets
being revealed returns

when the possibility
of Sassen's tapes
being heard in court emerges.

The tapes contain information
that connects to Kasztner's
testimony in Nuremberg.

Eichmann discusses
a Nazi officer named
Kurt Becher,

who is one of the men
that Kasztner testifies for
at the trials.

Becher manages the assets
seized from the
Hungarian Jews,

including companies
like Manfred Weiss Steel,

which had 40,000 employees
during the war.

And Eichmann mentions
on the tapes.

WILLEM [in German]

NARRATOR [in English]:
Years later,
a possible reason

for Kasztner's testimony
at Nuremberg is revealed.

Declassified
documents confirm

that the young State
of Israel used funds

that Kurt Becher seized
from Jewish families
during the war

to obtain arms.

YUVAL: Ben-Gurion feared
that at the Eichmann trial

people would discover
what he had managed to hide.

He somehow managed
to shift the blame

against him
and the Zionist leadership

for what they did
or didn't do,
vis a vis the Nazis.

He feared that everything
would be revealed
with Eichmann

and he didn't want
the Sassen interview.

Ben-Gurion is scarred
from the Kasztner affair.

NARRATOR:
The Israeli leadership learns
from the "Life" article

that Kasztner helps Eichmann

to keep the Hungarian Jews

from resisting deportation

in exchange for allowing
a few hundred Jews

train passage to Switzerland.

And they fear
what else might be revealed.

Hausner's request
that the transcripts
of the Sassen

Sassen interviews
be admitted into evidence

once again
creates a sense of concern

on the part
of the Israeli government.

But Eichmann's lawyer,
Servatius,
objects to their admittance

based on the fact
that there is no way to prove

that the transcripts
are Eichmann's actual words.

JUDGE MOSHE [in Hebrew]

NARRATOR [in English]:
The judges decide
to disqualify

the 700 pages
of the Sassen transcripts,

but makes an exception
for a few pages

where Eichmann's notes
are clearly visible.

There was no way
that Hausner
could actually verify

the truthfulness
of the transcripts themselves.

Now, he did not have
the audiotapes.

Here my explanation begins
to be within the realm
of conspiracy.

Because if this document
is given life,

it proves the accusations
against Kasztner.

It proves the allegations
against Kasztner.

It proves the allegations

against the Zionist movement
in Hungary,

which is affiliated
to the ruling party
of the Israeli government.

The Mossad hides many things
about the Eichmann affair
to this day

and the Secret Service
hides details
about the Kasztner affair,

because if these things
are discovered

even today,
they will cause a storm.

The fuse hasn't yet been
neutralized.

[gunshot]

NARRATOR: Much surrounding
Kasztner's death
remains a mystery.

Three men with ties
to a right-wing

underground movement
were arrested.

They claimed
they acted alone.

Convicted of murder,

they were sentenced
to life in prison.

But in 1963, just a year
after the Eichmann trial,

they were all mysteriously
granted a full pardon

and released from prison.

[tape whirring]

While the tapes
are never heard
during the trial,

Eichmann clearly says
that Kasztner confronted him

regarding the fate
of his fellow Jews.

ADOLF [in German]

BETTINA [in English]:
Eichmann was so proud
of himself.

He was able to manipulate
Kasztner
and take advantage of him

so that Kasztner could not
get a true picture of reality.

I believe that from
this part of the tapes,

the tough situation Kasztner
was in becomes much clearer

and appears
in a different light.

You get a much fairer
perspective of it.

NARRATOR:
The disqualification
of the Sassen transcripts

is a victory for the defense

and a major blow
to Attorney General Hausner's
case against Eichmann.

TIMOTHY: Since Eichmann denied
that those were his words,

even though his handwriting
was on certain pages,

you had to have the tapes.

Naturally, Gideon Hausner
would have given anything

to be able to play the
Eichmann recordings in court.

And there was a rumor

that the trial took so long,
because he always hoped
for it.

NARRATOR: Unable to locate
the tapes or use the majority
of the transcripts

to prove Eichmann's guilt,

Hausner summons
the survivors
of the Holocaust

to confront Eichmann
with the horrors
his crimes inflicted.

[in Hebrew]

Avraham Aviel.

DEBORAH [in English]:
Today when you speak about
survivors:

"Our honored survivors,"
"our treasured survivors,"

but then there was even
a feeling, common enough,

that we know you must have
stepped on someone to survive.

[in Hebrew]

NARRATOR [in English]:
The author Yehiel De-Nur,

known by his pen name
Ka-Tsetnik,

writes books influenced
by his time
as a prisoner

in the Auschwitz death camp.

HANNA: He told me that he did
not want to testify.

He was not sleeping,
he couldn't eat.

And Hausner put
such a heavy pressure on him

that his resistance broke.

[in Hebrew]

NARRATOR [in English]:
He took his pen name,
Ka-Tsetnik,

from the initials
for the German word
for "concentration camp"

and the number
that was tattooed

on each prisoner's arm
by the Nazis.

[in Hebrew]

HANNA [in English]:
In retrospect,
Hausner was right.

In the collective memory,

the one testimony
that was imprinted forcefully

was that testimony
of Ka-Tsetnik.

ZVI [in Hebrew]

NARRATOR [in English]:
Miki Goldman serves

as Hausner's assistant
during the trial.

One survivor's testimony
will stick with him forever.

[in German]

[gavel thuds]

DEBORAH [in English]:
I think there was a tendency,
certainly amongst Israelis,

to see survivors
as the "Ghetto Jews."

They called them "Sabonim,"
the soaps,

the people who were supposed
to be made into soap.

So, in other words,
they're not like us.

There was something
fatally flawed about them

that they allowed this
to happen to them.

[in German]

GIDEON [in English]
These people,
these tongue-tied people,

they'll never be again
the same as they were before

Hitler came there
and before the roof
caved in on them.

Uh, there is something
traumatic

in their make-up which
will never be good again.

AMOS [in German]

NARRATOR [in English]:
At the conclusion
of the witnesses' testimony,

Hausner confronts Eichmann

with irrefutable evidence

of the atrocities committed
by the Nazis.

ALAN: All the lights were off
in the courtroom

and documentary pictures
or news pictures

were being projected
on the wall.

Bodies being bulldozed
into a death pit.

Awful!

But we had one camera
on Eichmann

and it looked
as if he was laughing.

This was the first time
you could see who's Eichmann,

what he felt like.

ADOLF [in German]

NARRATOR [in English]:
Finally, Gideon Hausner

provides one last crucial
piece of evidence.

Towards the end of the war,

Eichmann commits
perhaps his most
devilish crime,

as it becomes clear
that Germany
is going to lose the war.

REPORTER
It is certainly great news

when we heard
that the 7th British
armored division,

the "Desert Rats"
is in action in France

and the Germans
don't like it.

They know to their cost
what it is
to come in contact with them.

DEBORAH: There was a vision
among some leading Nazis,
Himmler among them,

that there would emerge
some kind of Nazi Germany
without Hitler.

And there came

[stutters]
the order from Himmler

to stop the deportations.

And still, there was this one
transport

that Eichmann sent
against Himmler's order
to Auschwitz.

[chattering]

He could say
whatever he wanted,

being a small wheel
in a big engine

and obeying orders.

At this point,
he went against orders

and he killed 2,000 people.

[chattering]

GIDEON:
His insane fanaticism
in Hungary,

where he even went
behind the back of his
great superior,

Heinrich Himmler.

He made moves
he was not allowed to do

just to finally accomplish
one achievement

written on his own name,
Adolf Eichmann.

HANNA: Without the tapes,
the biggest challenge
Hausner faced

was to break Eichmann
during the cross-examination,

to admit that
he was a key person

in the execution
of the "Final Solution."

Hausner failed.

Eichmann did not break

through the cross-examination.

[in German]

NARRATOR [in English]:
Hausner later wrote
in his book,

Justice In Jerusalem,

"I wanted to get
the Sassen tapes

to bring Eichmann's defense

to a complete standstill.

Then he could
hardly have been able
to deny his own voice."

Hausner also mentions
in the book

that an anonymous source

offered him the opportunity
to purchase the recordings,

with one condition:

that he could not play them
in the courtroom
during the trial.

Hausner refuses,
and the Sassen recordings

are never played
at the Eichmann trial.

Why those tapes didn't appear

and make it possible
to introduce as a confession

Eichmann's own words?
Why didn't they appear
at the trial?

The answer to that question
has great moral consequences.

If there is one thing
that is very clear today,

it's that the abduction
of Eichmann

hit the most sensitive part
in the semi-secret relations

between Israel and Germany,

or, if you like,
between Ben-Gurion
and Adenauer.

Adenauer had a meeting

with the director
of the Israel Mission
in Germany.

And he said something
scandalous:

If Israel agrees
that we stop these trials

and don't start chasing
after Nazis
all over the world,

I will promote
the diplomatic relations.

THEKLA: We got the tapes
in 1999

from a newspaper
in Switzerland.

We knew that this newspaper

bought these tapes
from the family of Eichmann.

MAN: Can you tell us
who is the owner of the tapes?

THEKLA: We have signed
that we won't tell
who the owner is.

NARRATOR: Sassen always knew
the value of the Eichmann
recordings.

Just before his death,

he gives the tapes
to the Eichmann family,

likely in an attempt to,
in some way,

make up for his betraying
his fellow Nazi comrade.

Around the same time,

Sassen is secretly filmed
by an Argentinian filmmaker

and asked about his sessions
with Eichmann.

MAN [in German]

[tape whirring]

TIMOTHY [in English]:
We are very fortunate

that due to Sassen's delusions

and Eichmann's vanity,

we have an incontrovertible
confession

from the architect
of the Holocaust.

So the tapes...
the legacy of the tapes,

[stutters] it's hopeful,

which means that
there's hope
that big lies can be exploded.

Perpetrators of such crimes

should never feel comfortable

that they can get away
with them.

They might have been sure
in 1959,

but after 1960,

they could never quite sleep
as soundly
and that was a good thing.

[in German]

GABRIEL [in German]

[in Hebrew]

MICHAEL [in German]

TAMI [in German]

[closing theme music playing]