All language subtitles for EICHMANN - Devils Confession The Lost Eichmann Tapes - 2 - Documentary (2023) -Hr

ADOLF EICHMANN I didn't care
about the Jews that I deported to Auschwitz.

I didn't even care if they
were alive or already dead.

Jews unfit to work

are to be submitted to the
Final Solution. Period.

Previously on

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 Where is it?

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 All rise!

Adolf Eichmann.

The extended arm of
Hitler's evil regime.

Nazis have always denied
their role in the Holocaust.

It could not have been me,
because it was not my decision in such cases.

After
the war, many fled Europe,

including the architect
of the Final Solution -

Adolf Eichmann.

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.

There 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.

Regarding Life
Magazine and its publication

that we showed the defendant
during the interrogation,

he did not deny

that this publication relied
on material that came from him.

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.

You were given
the Life article for your review.

You said, when you saw the
Einsatzgruppen in action:

"Our people will
turn into sadists,

we must find a different
method of execution." True?

The last part, that we
must find a different method for executions,

this seems foreign to me. I'm
hearing it for the first time.

Well, you said that
if extermination must be physical,

let it be physical,
but not by gunfire.

To prevent a Jewish baby's brain

from splattering on your
leather coat as it did in Minsk.

Right?

No! This is a totally
wrong interpretation of my words.

I did not express
them like this.

The meaning was
that you cannot go

and kill people. I
explained this clearly.

In principle, it doesn't matter
if you use gas or bullets.

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.

But you are stating here:
"Now, as the Führer ordered a physical solution,

it must be a physical
solution." Physical solution!

- Did I sign that? I don't think so.
- You didn't make any comment on that!

Obviously,
it must have slipped my sight.

Otherwise, I would have
certainly corrected it.

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.

I myself looked
into the Führer's dietary cook

in terms of her origins,

and I concluded that in the
context of the Nuremberg Laws

she is to be addressed
as a 1/32 Jewess.

Who?

Eva Braun,

the "dietary cook"
of the Führer!

I say that with air
quotation marks.

In reality, she was
the Führer's bride.

The bride of the Führer of
the Greater German Reich.

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.

The
Jewish population acquired

such an exaggeratedly high
share of the economic assets

compared to their proportion

of the population

that here, how should I say…

the Jew had understood to violently
grab everything with brutality

and leave others hungry.

You've always
been a devoted antisemite, right?

I've never been
an antisemite, but a nationalist.

And there's a written as well
as an oral record of that.

I've never been an antisemite.

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.

The things you
said in Sassen's conversations

indicate severe
antisemitism, don't they?

I said it is difficult
for me to remember if I said such things.

What does
Dr. Servatius say at this point?

He just always confirmed
that there was a recorded conversation,

but he never said that what is written
down is the content from that recording.

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.

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.

Isser
just says, "We listened in on them

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

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.

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.

The prosecutor
submitted the defendant's comments to us

in response to the article
that appeared in Life Magazine.

Yes.

His primary claim

is that "Life" published
only a summary of his remarks

and therefore, the meaning in
the full source may be different.

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.

Did the
prosecution procure the original?

No, we don't have the original.

Based on our information,

it was recorded and submitted
to a journalist in Argentina,

a Dutch Nazi, we are told,

but we don't have
the original tapes.

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?

So you can't get
the full transcript from "Life"?

If the court so wishes, the
prosecution will try to do so

and contact Life Magazine.

Our experience, typically,

in newspaper inquiries to request
the sources of their information

is not encouraging and hopeful.

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.

We must, and we will
look into the future with full confidence.

Because also the West woke up
to the threat from the East.

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 While
Eichmann was standing trial in Jerusalem,

many of his accomplices
are still free

and hold senior positions
in West Germany.

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 Adenauer

that such a document is
going to be presented,

which is contrary
to all legal logic.

Who does such a thing?

Ben-Gurion was well
aware of Globke's part

in phrasing the Nuremberg Laws.

And yet, he has to take care

of the state he's
responsible for - Israel.

A couple of days
before the trial,

Hausner gives Ben-Gurion

the text of his opening speech.

GIDEON HAUSNER
When I stand before you here,

Judges of Israel,

to lead the prosecution
of Adolf Eichmann,

I do not stand alone.

Standing here with
me, at this time,

are six million accusers.

But they will not be able to point
the finger of blame at the glass cell,

because their ashes are piled
up among the hills of Auschwitz,

in the fields of Treblinka.

- I
- know many Israelis of a certain age

who can quote the
opening paragraph

of that speech.

And Ben-Gurion makes very
few comments about it,

but just the only thing he asks

is that wherever Hausner
refers to Germany,

he refer to "Nazi Germany."

GIDEON HAUSNER The fracture
of the people of Israel in this generation

was discussed in a
few of the trials

that were held after
Nazi Germany was defeated

in World War II.

It is certainly the
case that Ben-Gurion did exercise

some influence over
the prosecution.

Ben-Gurion knew
Israel needed arms.

Israel needed financial
support of Germany.

He may have hated doing it,
but he was a practical man.

With this trial,
Ben-Gurion also wanted to show

why Israel, why Jews,
must have the bomb.

So there won't be
another Holocaust.

The story of
the Holocaust is, in fact,

the story of Eichmann's career.

After establishing methods
to identify the Jews,

he is promoted and
sent to Austria,

which was annexed
by the German Reich

and empowered with the task of
ridding the country of Jews.

Eichmann arrives
in Austria, and immediately,

he is establishing his old idea

of creating a central
emigration bureau for the Jews.

He took over the
Rothschild Palais,

a famous place for Jews.

There he creates a
pattern, how to get rid of the Jews

and to force them to leave at
least some of their property

to the Third Reich.

Meaning, an official robbery

plus deportation.

One of
those Jews came to the trial

and testified at the trial

that you walked into
the Rothschild Palais

with a business, with a home,

with bank accounts,
with possessions,

and as you went from desk to
desk, you gave up these things

and you came out at the end with
permission to leave Austria.

DR. FRANZ MAYER There was a big room

in which Eichmann sat.

- You instantly saw him.
- Yes, of course.

This was a man with the temperament
of a ruler over life and death,

rude, crude.

When we entered,

he didn't let us
approach his desk.

We had to stand the whole time.

Eichmann gained power and control.

By now, he realized
that this is the way

to promote his career
and to gain achievements.

It's his success with the
Jews that will be his test.

Can you confirm that
what you did in Austria was actually

forcing the Jews
into deportation?

You boast about having
organized the Jewish emigration

according to the
assembly line method.

I did not
force any Jew to emigrate.

On the contrary,
Dr. Löwenherz came to me...

I'm asking for an answer.

I had demanded from
Löwenherz to present me with

at least 1,200 to 1,400
Jews per day at the time.

It was a coming and
going, the whole day.

If I tell you that
for multiple weeks

every day we had 1,000
Jews ready for departure.

The German
hierarchy was so impressed

by the way Eichmann handled this

that this sort of skyrocketed him
into this organizational task.

ADOLF EICHMANN
They recognized my department

as a treasure chest

where everything

in regards to Jewish
life in Austria

could be found.

GIDEON HAUSNER You
controlled the lives of the Jews in the Reich.

No, that is
not correct. That is not correct.

It is more clear,

after we heard about that
period from Dr. Löwenherz

and the other testimonies.

So everyone is lying besides
you who is telling the truth?

No, the documents tell the
truth. And they confirm what I just said.

And they confirm
what I just said.

GIDEON HAUSNER If you
want to call black white and white black,

I can't do anything about it.

Within six
months after his arrival to Austria,

Eichmann succeeds to expel
more Jews from Austria

than Germany has succeeded
in all the five years

since Hitler's rise to power.

This really caught the
eyes of the Fuührer

and soon enough, in November of
1938, the Kristallnacht happened.

In January, Hitler will set up

a Central Authority for
Jewish Emigration in Germany.

Eichmann was one of
the key characters

leading to the "Final
Solution" as we know it.

Perhaps the most
damning part of Eichmann's legacy

is his participation in
the Wannsee Conference,

where the plan for the vicious
extermination of all Jews in Europe

is meticulously laid out.

The Conference is led by Eichmann's
commander, Reinhard Heydrich,

head of the Reich
Security Main Office.

On
20th January 1942,

15 high ranking members
of the Nazi state

met here to discuss in 90
minutes the organization

for systematic mass murder
of all Jews in Europe.

The house that we know
as the house of the Wannsee Conference

was an SS hotel.

People come here to
spend leisure time,

to take a swim in the lake
that we know as Wannsee,

and then the house was also used

for talks and conferences.

We know that the men
were invited here

to have the talk on the "Final
Solution of the Jewish Question"

as they put it in
the invitation,

accompanied by breakfast.

They had food.
They had alcohol.

Eichmann refers to "cognac."

The session
lasted 90 minutes.

It's astonishing to see a group
of 15 people discussing the murder

of millions of Jews
and nobody's concerned,

as if they're talking
about moving a table

from one side of the
room to the other side.

Gentlemen,
I hope you enjoyed your meal.

We now proceed to the main question
in regards to the "Final Solution,"

namely determining which group of people
will be considered for evacuation.

The decision for systematic
mass murder is closely related

to other decisions of
dominating the whole world,

wanting to keep the
world free of Jews.

The "Final Solution," or what
most people call the "Holocaust,"

takes place only at the end of
the Holocaust, from late 1941,

when Nazi Germany
changes its policy

from forced emigration
to a total annihilation.

Once the
Nazis invade the USSR,

they realize that
they have to tackle

huge numbers of
Jews and Communists

and largely
everything they hate.

They conclude that the
solution must be immediate.

So they begin to murder.

And while murdering,
they realize

that it creates difficulties

for their troops,
mostly mentally.

The negative effect of the
murdering on the soldiers

forced the Nazis to
find another solution.

The new solution came in the
form of organization and order.

There is a German proverb...

"There must be order."

It is a big operation,
millions of Jews have to be transported

to the place of death.
How do you organize it?

And here is the man who knows
how to do it professionally.

Do you know

if several years before the war

there had already been a plan
meticulously detailed by Heydrich

down to the smallest detail,

for the so-called solution
of the "Jewish Question?"

No, I would have had
to know about that.

After we started marching,

the moment dictated
these things.

But was Heydrich not mandated
at the Wannsee Conference

with the solution of
the Jewish question?

In fact he was authorized to…

to initiate, to take over the final
solution to the Jewish question.

He was empowered to do so.

Heydrich wanted to get the
certification to deal with Jewish affairs as he wished.

He received it at the
Wannsee Conference.

You were his qualified referent

for all matters arising
from the "Final Solution."

That is not true.

I was simply tasked with
the administrative process

of invitations for
these people to

the conference in March '42.

In most of the movies that
were made on the Wannsee Conference,

you would rather see
him sitting aside,

only taking notes.

That is what he himself claims.

The topic that is being
talked about is his topic.

Eichmann was in
charge of organizing the deportations,

of coordinating activities.

He's the one
preparing the numbers.

This very famous page six

of the minutes that summarizes

all European countries
where the line is drawn

and 11 million European
Jews are mentioned

that are going to be
deported and killed.

So that is Eichmann's role.

Eichmann later ensures
that explicit words

like "murder" or "execution"
will not be mentioned

since he's very much aware
of the need of secrecy.

One of the mechanisms
that makes it easier

for the German society,
for the German institutions

and even, in part, for
the rest of the world,

not to be aware of
what's going on.

There is a word

that is used in this document

and that is the word of
"behandelt" - the treatment.

They would be suitably treated.

At that point of time, for
most of the perpetrators,

to my knowledge, is clearly
understood as killing.

Eichmann writes the
protocol of the Conference

and sends it to the
relevant offices.

Then he carries out the
decisions of the Conference,

being sure that this is
what the angel of history

has asked him to do.

The Führer has given
the order for physical extermination…

I had heard these words
for the first time.

I know that all too well.

I even thought to myself,
"physical extermination…"

You see, the word in itself
is already rather peculiar.

If it had been, "The Führer has
ordered the extermination of the Jews…"

But like that? "Physical
extermination…"

It seemed incredible to me.

Eichmann
is something of a logistical mastermind

and he wants to make sure

that he is highly successful
in the deportations,

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.

You saw in the Jews
an enemy that had to be exterminated,

like any other enemy.

"The enemy must be exterminated."

The word "extermination"
is not appropriate

because you don't
exterminate an enemy,

you need to fight the enemy.

But not a physical extermination,
like the one Hitler commanded.

GIDEON HAUSNER Do you
know of a non-physical extermination?

Adolf
Eichmann visited Auschwitz many times.

He went there to
inspect and to be sure

that his instructions
are being carried out.

He even had some
improvement suggestions.

We know this from the camp
commander, Rudolf Hoöss,

who welcomed him
there each time.

You
need to know that,

if someone is already
in a concentration camp

it is rather easy to get in, but
extremely difficult to get out again.

Very difficult.

He
was asked by some cabinet ministers

of the German Nazi government
to make them a personal favor

and release some important Jews

who have made some
important inventions

for Nazi Germany.

Nothing helped.

He always said, "I
make no exceptions."

He was... there's a saying
in Hebrew, "Meshuga ladavar."

He was crazed to kill

every Jew he could find.

GIDEON HAUSNER
It's more elegant to kill with gas.

Isn't that what the people
from the Eastern Ministry said?

Yes, but that
definitely wasn't my opinion.

That should be clear from
what was said before.

I don't know who introduced
the physical extermination.

If
Hausner had had access to the tapes,

that he could have played
the tapes in the trial,

then the next question he
would have asked Eichmann was,

were you lying then
or are you lying now?

With Hausner still unable
to get his hands on the tapes,

he presses Eichmann to
admit to his culpability

in the extermination
of the Jewish people.

Here, on the tapes,
Eichmann clearly admits

to the deceptive techniques
used by the Nazis

to make the gas chambers appear
like innocent shower rooms.

A
brigadier general,

he reported to me

that they installed sprinklers
that looked like shower heads.

This would be a shower room.

And they would put in the
idiots and throw in cyanide.

Still unable to get Eichmann

to admit his guilt in open court

or locate the
whereabouts of the tapes,

Hausner finds another solution.

He drops a bombshell
on the defense,

shocking everyone
in the courtroom

by miraculously introducing
copies of the actual transcripts

that Sassen has made of his
interviews with Eichmann.

GIDEON HAUSNER I must inform the court

that efforts were made to
procure the transcript.

And we have it.

Not from Life Magazine.

Is it a copy or…?

It's a transcription.
It's not brief.

It's several hundreds of pages.

We do not have the tape, but…

there are also
remarks by Eichmann

in his handwriting.

What he called

"side notes."

The
transcripts of the tapes become available,

and not just the transcripts,
but the transcripts

with corrections in
Eichmann's handwriting.

Because Sassen
transcribed the tapes,

gave them to Eichmann
and said, "Go over them

and see if there's
anything wrong."

And you have his corrections
in his handwriting.

So this was firsthand evidence.

When you want to
sell such a document around the world,

while everybody is talking about
the issue of Nazis on the run,

it's not such a smart idea to put
thousands of pages in a heavy suitcase

and take it for a trip.

It's heavy!

Nowadays, it can be a PDF
file on our cellphones,

but in those days, it was
several kilos of luggage.

Very noticeable,
large, and heavy.

It could have been stolen.

So Sassen did what any
smart person would do.

He made copies, backup copies.

That means he simply
took pictures.

One of these copies
reaches Gideon Hausner,

who never reveals
how he obtained

the transcripts of
the Sassen recordings,

taking the secret to his grave.

But we do know that Nazi
hunter Simon Wiesenthal

was in touch with
Hausner during the trial

and may have assisted in
procuring the evidence.

In July 1945,
I obtained from the Jewish Agency

a wanted notice
against Adolf Eichmann

that proved that he was the main culprit
for the mass murder of the Jews of Europe.

After reading this notice
and other documents,

Eichmann was also, in my eyes,
the murderer of my family.

Individuals like Simon Wiesenthal

made those former Nazi criminals

being concerned and
not sleeping well,

fearing of being uncovered.

I heard this story
that his landlady came

and saw over his shoulder

what documents he
has on his desk

and there was the
name "Eichmann."

And she said, "Oh, Eichmann,
I know his parents.

They have their Electricity
Store just around the corner."

Wiesenthal reveals that the
transcripts reached the Eichmann family in Linz.

So Eichmann
was entitled to a copy,

and Sassen brought this copy
to Linz, to Eichmann's brother.

And as far as we know,
he kept it in his desk,

where it remained
for quite some time

until it occurred to someone to
break into Robert Eichmann's house

and steal the document.

There's a possibility
that by this occasion

Wiesenthal received
one of these copies

since, I mean, he was
very well networked.

You had Eichmann's
handwritten notes.

You had 80 something pages,

so it was obvious
that these were real.

We didn't need tapes to
justify that they were real.

MOSHE LANDAU Mr. Hausner,
when did the prosecution obtain this document?

Approximately…

It's hard to say…

it's hard to say.

- It's hard...
- Because the question is

what Your Honor calls
the prosecution.

If Your Honor is asking
me when I obtained it?

Yes.

It arrived only three weeks ago.

But it arrived in
Israel beforehand.

Please don't pressure
me with questions.

Hausner dodges the questions

about how he got
the transcripts.

The evasiveness is calculated

As he begins to realize his
trial strategy may be starting

to interfere with the secret
Israeli nuclear agenda.

On the next episode of The Devil's
Confession: The Lost Eichmann Tapes...

Can Eichmann and
Servatsius find a way

to keep the transcripts
out of the trial

or will the court allow them
to be admitted as evidence?

Eichmann plays
full risk and is 100 percent sure

that the tapes will
never be heard.

Because he knows what
else is on these tapes.

In the meantime, Hausner
makes the historic decision

to call to the witness
stand Holocaust survivors...

So they can directly
confront Eichmann

with the horrors he
inflicted on them.

They came
from Lida - the Germans.

I turned my head, he asked
me whom to shoot first.

As Hausner presses
to get the tapes, he suddenly is confronted

with the ghost of
the Nuremberg trials.

And even more secrets that
the Israeli government

would rather keep
buried in the past.

Gideon
Hausner's great fear

was that quarrels amongst the
Jews would enter into this trial.

As the trial
continues, will Hausner be able

to overcome these
mounting obstacles?