All language subtitles for The.Devils.Confession.S01E01.WEBRip.x264.Hi

WOMAN: Eichmann
came once a week.

[dog barking in the distance]

The family had to withdraw, you
know, from the living room etc.

Because they were going
to have this conversation.

But we would open the
door and we would listen.

[door creaking]

[indistinct chattering]

My father recorded
all that stuff.

WILLEM SASSEN [speaking
German] Belzec 600,000.

Sobibor 250,000.

Treblinka 700,000.

Chelmno 300,000.

Total - 1,850,000.

Concerning the terrible
Camp Auschwitz,

its commander Rudolf Höss

stated the number of
gassed Jews as 2.5 million.

So, is that correct?

ADOLF EICHMANN [speaking German]
From where did you get these things?

- Office of the Reichsführer.
- Yes.

- Is there a copy?
- Yes.

Let's get rid of this fly here.

[fly buzzing]

It's a fly of Jewish nature.

[thuds]

WOMAN [in English]:
My sister and I

detested the figure.

The persona was so weird.

Trouble.

Always darkness.

There was something
about him that...

the child could detect,

something very negative,
the child in me.

MAN [speaking Hebrew] All rise!

Adolf Eichmann.

The extended arm of
Hitler's evil regime.

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

ADOLF EICHMANN [speaking German] It could not have
been me, because it was not my decision in such cases.

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

including the architect of the
Final Solution, Adolf Eichmann.

MAN: 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.

NARRATOR: But after
his capture by Israel,

Eichmann denies everything...

[speaking German] I did not see any
murders, I did not see any torture.

I did not know at all at that
time such things happened.

NARRATOR [in English]: Hoping
the tapes will never be heard

during his trial in Jerusalem.

[speaking German] One should
see to bring the tapes

and if I didn't say
it, it will be proven.

Yes.

MAN [in English]: The story
of the Eichmann Trial,

60 years later,

still not fully told.

NARRATOR: After mysteriously
disappearing for years,

the tapes are rediscovered

and now, for the first time

we'll hear Eichmann
admitting his crimes...

a true Nazi confession.

[speaking German] Had we
killed 10.3 million Jews,

then I would be
satisfied and would say,

good, we exterminated an enemy.

REPORTER [in English]: I am
standing in front of the courtroom

where Eichmann is going
to face his judges

and as you see, there are a lot
of people already very interested.

People are coming and waiting
outside this courtroom.

Eichmann is in one of the rooms

on the fourth floor, we think,

and as you see, it's very
heavily guarded, the building.

I don't think there
have ever been so many

correspondents and
writers, and observers

on any story since the war,
not even the Nuremberg Trial.

PROF. DEBORAH LIPSTADT: This
trial was of critical importance.

It was the beginning
of the process

of the emergence
of the Holocaust

from the shadows of history.

[chattering]

DR. BETTINA STANGNETH: The trial
begins on the 11th of April.

This man is standing
before the court

and also before the many
expectations of the audience.

All they heard about the
crimes he was accused of

was so extreme that no image
of a human befitted them.

MAN [speaking Hebrew] All rise!

Case 704061.

The Attorney General of Israel,

Mr. Gideon Hausner
against Adolf Eichmann.

DEBORAH LIPSTADT [in English]: Gideon
Hausner was a commercial lawyer.

He was chosen to be
Attorney General.

He comes into office

and he is relentless to
getting this story out.

GIDEON HAUSNER [speaking
Hebrew] When I first saw him,

it was only on the day of the trial.
I didn't want to see him before.

Shakespeare expressed
it in "King Lear,"

"The prince of darkness
is a gentleman."

[in English] "The prince of
darkness is a gentleman."

[speaking Hebrew] And Eichmann looked
like a lowly post office clerk,

someone you could encounter

in an office, on the
bus, in the street

and you would walk by him
without giving him a second look.

Adolf Eichmann.

Tell him to stand.

You are Adolf, the son
of Adolf Karl Eichmann?

Please translate.

[speaking German] Yes.

[speaking Hebrew] You are
charged before this court

with an indictment
containing 15 charges.

A: Immediately after the
outbreak of World War II

the defendant served as Head
of the Gestapo in Berlin.

His role was to
locate and deport Jews

in Germany and the
other Axis countries.

MAN [in English]:
Eichmann, in many ways,

was the Chief Logistical Officer

overseeing deportations
of Jewish persons,

largely from Western
Europe, to killing centers.

He does this with full awareness

that the result of deporting

is that they're
going to be killed.

MOSHE LANDAU [speaking Hebrew] Do you plead
guilty or not guilty to the first charge?

[speaking German] I plead
not guilty as charged.

[murmuring]

Quiet.

WOMAN [in English]: Eichmann refused
to accept any guilt on himself.

He was a civil servant,

the laws of Germany
are as they are

and he tried to detach
himself completely

from the ideological dimension.

GIDEON HAUSNER [speaking Hebrew] The defendant
caused the slaughter of millions of Jews

as the person in charge of
carrying out the Nazis' plan

to physically
exterminate all the Jews,

a plan known as "The Final
Solution to the Jewish Question."

[in English] Eichmann
continually insisted

that he was simply
following orders.

[speaking German] I plead
not guilty as charged.

In the spirit of the
charge, not guilty.

NARRATOR [in English]:
Eichmann's appearance in court

and the crimes attributed to him

catch the attention of both
the public and the press.

Among the many journalists who
go to Israel to cover the trial,

is the famous Jewish writer and
Holocaust survivor Hannah Arendt,

who reports on the proceedings
for the New Yorker magazine.

Arendt expects to
find a devilish killer

with a strong hatred of Jews,

but surprisingly sees
a man whose appearance

does not match the
crimes attributed to him.

She describes the moral gap
between his bureaucratic demeanor

and the atrocities he committed

with the term "the
banality of evil."

BETTINA STANGNETH: I think Eichmann
tricked basically everyone.

We had 400 reporters in the
courtroom, like Hannah Arendt,

and I didn't see a single
report in which someone said,

"You can tell that he did it."

Instead, they said,
"Wow, who is this?"

NARRATOR [in English]: So,
who is the real Eichmann?

Is he simply a
soldier obeying orders

as he presents himself
in the Israeli court?

Or is he the fervent Nazi

that Hausner is trying
to prove him to be?

The missing evidence, from four
years earlier in Buenos Aires,

as he boasts to
his fellow Nazis,

reveals the truth.

ADOLF EICHMANN [speaking German,
on recorder] We did what we could.

Had 10.3 million of

these enemies been killed,

then we would have
fulfilled our task.

I know that what I am telling you is
hard and I will be condemned for it,

but I cannot say it to you
otherwise. It is the truth.

Why should I deny it?

Right?

ADOLF EICHMANN Nothing irritates
me more than when a fellow

afterwards denies

the things he's done.

Isn't this how it is?
You see, after 1945…

NARRATOR [in English]: On the recordings,
Eichmann criticizes other Nazis

captured by the
Allies after the war

who deny responsibility
for their actions.

To understand
Eichmann's rationale

for participating in
these conversations,

one needs to examine his
character and life after 1945.

MAN: In April-May 1945,

there was not much left
of the Third Reich.

The Nazis realize it's over

and they're trying to
figure out what to do next.

Eichmann must have understood,
because of what he did,

that he is wanted by the Allies.

And so he tried
to get to an area

still controlled by Nazi forces,

the last holdout, so to speak,

and particularly popular were
the mountains of Austria,

the Austrian Alps.

NARRATOR: Like many
of his fellow Nazis,

Eichmann flees to
his former home,

the last stronghold
of the Third Reich.

He feels protected there,

but very quickly discovers

he cannot escape his involvement

in the crimes he
committed during the war.

GERALD STEINACHER: Even his own
comrades of the SS, his own superiors,

wanted to get rid of him,

because he was so
obviously involved

in the mass murder of the European
Jews and had blood on his hands.

NARRATOR: Eichmann secures
forged identity papers

with plans to
escape the country,

but is caught by the Allies.

MAN: Eichmann was
arrested by the Americans

and he was held in a
prisoner of war camp.

The Americans had about 3 million
Nazis prisoners at that time.

So Eichmann was just one more
among those many millions.

There was an incredible
number of soldiers imprisoned

and he pretended to have
a very low military rank.

At the time, photos were not at
all as common as they are today,

so it was relatively easy
to remain unidentified.

ADOLF EICHMANN [speaking German,
on recorder] From June 1945

- I was in various camps.
- Yes.

Jew commissions would
come into the camps.

And when another Jew commission
arrived, and we all had to line up.

They were wondering whether they
would encounter known faces anywhere.

WILLEM SASSEN [on recorder]
And what were you thinking

during this first inspection?

ADOLF EICHMANN [speaking German] I
didn't care at the time, I didn't care.

I would see to find some
warm water and with a

razor blade simply cut
my wrists open. Done.

So often I wanted to resist,

stupidly, by throwing
my life away.

Fate didn't let me. I
couldn't care any less.

UKI GONI [in English]: He managed to
forge an ID in the name of Otto Eckmann

while he was being
held by the Americans.

So he was fairly
safe at that moment.

No one was looking for him.

Until his name came up
in the Nuremberg Trials.

Attention! Tribunal!

REPORTER: Judges from Britain,
America, Russia and France

assembled in
Nuremberg's courthouse.

LAWRENCE DOUGLAS:
The Nuremberg Trial

that is the trial of the
major Nazi war criminals

that took place
between 1945 and 1946.

This was the first international
criminal trial in human history

dealing with spectacular crimes.

Eichmann is mentioned surprisingly
often in the Nuremberg Trials.

We hear about what
he was involved with

and that he was the main contact
for Hitler's favorite project,

the extermination of Jews.

[speaking German] They were, without
exception, taken to Auschwitz

and there they were submitted
to the Final Solution.

Occasionally Eichmann also sent

summary reports to the Reich Security Main
Office and to the Head of the Gestapo.

UKI GONI [in English]: In the Nuremberg
Trials his name was mentioned.

That appeared in the
newspapers the next day.

The next day he was gone.

He escaped from the American
prisoner of war camp.

Being held by the
Americans was much better

than being held by the Russians.

So it was not
difficult to escape

from the American
prisoner of war camp.

Many Nazis did.

[clicking]

NARRATOR: Eichmann tells
Sassen in Argentina

the story of the
strange escape route

he used to avoid capture.

WILLEM SASSEN [speaking German, on recorder] But
tell me, you said that you went through Bavaria?

ADOLF EICHMANN [speaking German, on
recorder] Yes, I traveled through Bavaria.

From there I
traveled to Hamburg,

From Hamburg I went
to the Rhineland.

From the Rhineland I went
to the Lüneburg Heath,

and nearby had been
the camp Bergen Belsen.

- There was the smell of garlic everywhere.
- Yes.

And only of garlic! And who
sold garlic at that time?

- Only the Jews.
- Yes.

I was astonished and
thought to myself,

who would have thought? Weren't
they all supposedly killed?

Because they accused us of having
sent all of them to the ovens

and now these guys
are haggling with me.

[birds chirping]

UKI GONI [in English]:
Eichmann had thought

that if enough time went by,

his name would be forgotten

and he would be able to live
a normal life in Germany.

NARRATOR: Eichmann believes he will
be able to stay in hiding for years.

He is surprised to discover

that the genocide
of the Jewish people

continues to preoccupy
the world, even in Germany

where the public
is slowly realizing

the scope of the
crimes committed

and hoping to put
the past behind them.

Eichmann looks for
a new hiding place

and decides to leave
his family behind

to take advantage of the Nazis'

well-known escape
route to Argentina.

[slow music playing]

MAN: At the end of WWII,

Juan Peron and Eva Duarte
Peron see an opportunity

to take in people
with scientific,

technological and engineering
training from Germany,

people who supported the Nazi
regime or served in the German army,

and at the end of the war

they want to get as
far away as they can

from the "crime scene."

GERALD STEINACHER: And many
asked the same question,

why did the Allies not just stop

this escape route?

It could have been easy.

They knew everything,
they knew the players,

they knew the structures, they
knew the institutions involved.

I think at some point
they focused their energy

on the new enemy.

And the new enemy was
Communism and the Soviet Union

and not the Nazis anymore.

RAANAN REIN: If you're
not a Communist,

who cares if in the
past you sinned?

So there was no
one internationally

that applied any
pressure on Argentina

or tried to prevent
the entry of people

who were involved or at least
suspected of involvement

in war crimes.

GERALD STEINACHER: Eichmann
gets a new identity

by the name of Ricardo Klement

with the help of the Vatican
Aid Commission for Refugees.

We have proof that in some cases

they know exactly who these people
were and who they were helping.

And very often, they did not
have to hide their backgrounds.

And when you look at the application
forms of these various criminals,

they wouldn't say, "I'm an
expert in torturing people,"

or "I'm a mass murderer,"

or "I'm an expert
for deporting people

to extermination camps."

Of course not.

BETTINA STANGNETH: He has the ability
to transform from a rigid-looking SS man

to a somewhat
sloppy-looking bureaucrat.

UKI GONI: Eichmann,
when he arrived,

was received at the
dock by Carlos Fuldner,

who was another SS man.

So the idea that
these Nazis lived

in secrecy in
Argentina was not true.

I lived a couple of years
in Buenos Aires as a kid

and my neighbor
was Carlos Fuldner,

the SS officer who
helped Eichmann

and probably hundreds
of other Nazis escape.

[German music playing]

NARRATOR: Eichmann becomes part of
the ex-Nazi community in Argentina.

He gets a job as an assistant to
an engineering crew in the Andes.

Finally, he feels that
his life is back on track.

UKI GONI: But at some point,

his luck seems to have
taken a turn for the worse

and he was left without any
real job and he started...

He had a laundry firm,

he worked in a rabbit farm

until, towards the end

he managed to work for a real company
again, which was for Mercedes Benz.

RAANAN REIN: He is
profoundly frustrated.

He feels like someone whom history
and destiny have marginalized

and that this is something
he does not deserve.

Eichmann said that
he suffered most

from becoming anonymous.

This is unfathomable!

For him, it was horrible

not being able
to be "Eichmann."

IRMTRUD WOJAK: So this
was the time when he

connected with
Sassen, Willem Sassen,

who was a propaganda
officer from the Netherlands

um, who also lived
in Buenos Aires.

UKI GONI: Now, the question
is, who is Willem Sassen?

And Willem Sassen, he's an
absolutely Hollywood figure.

A Dutch journalist at
the time of the war.

GoĂ♪bbels, the Nazi
minister of propaganda,

sent him to the Russian front where
Willem Sassen sent radio reports.

WILLEM SASSEN [speaking German] "In
squares and street corners and parks,

everywhere the Soviets
have their positions…"

[in English] After the war, Willem
Sassen was arrested in Holland

for treason, of course,
because he'd become an SS.

He managed to escape to
Buenos Aires on this tiny ship

and set himself
up as a journalist

and as a publisher in Argentina,

publishing books for other
Nazis who lived here.

BETTINA STANGNETH: He had already
been in Argentina for three years.

He had close ties with the Nazis

because he was a Nazi himself.

So if one has a political
agenda like restoring Nazism,

then you need allies, and in this
regard Eichmann was the jackpot.

UKI GONI: Eichmann met
Sassen at the ABC restaurant.

It was a German community
restaurant in downtown Buenos Aires.

The waiters clicked their
heels like in military fashion,

saluted the Nazis who
went for lunch there.

NARRATOR: The men meet
occasionally until the mid-1950s

when a series of groundbreaking
books are published

that reveal for the first time

the original documents,
certificates and minutes

that catalog the Holocaust inflicted
on the Jewish people in Europe.

Sassen manages to locate
copies of the books

and has them delivered
to him in Argentina.

Then these Nazis in Argentina
encountered a problem.

They wondered how it could be that
these crimes actually took place.

They felt disturbed
when they were told

that little children were
sent to the gas chambers.

This crime took place
in front of everyone,

but the whole dimension of
it and the actual dirty work

weren't visible to everyone.

Sassen at first assumes

that the mass murder
of the Jews is a lie.

Then he looked for somebody
who knew about these things

and, in that respect,
Eichmann was a gift.

UKI GONI: Sassen came
up with this crazy idea

that he would interview the
mastermind of the Holocaust

and in Sassen's mind

the idea was that
Eichmann would prove

that Hitler had nothing to do with
the extermination of the Jews.

Unfortunately for
Sassen and his friends,

Eichmann insisted that, of
course, Hitler knew. [laughs]

BETTINA STANGNETH: The
Nazis burned books,

but not because
they hated books.

They wanted to empty
shelves for their own books.

Eichmann dreamt very early,
in his 30s, of writing books.

He finds it meaningful.

It is part of his understanding
of being cultured.

And in Argentina, he suddenly gets
the opportunity through Sassen.

And also to earn some
money for the family.

They meet every weekend
and sit together for hours.

Five, six, seven hours.

The gentlemen sit
together and discuss.

This was kind of a public event

where other Nazis went to.

Very high ranking Nazis.

[chattering]

BETTINA STANGNETH:
Eichmann was a celebrity.

People fought to
be close to him.

He was always being asked, "Tell
me, what happened in Auschwitz?"

LAWRENCE DOUGLAS:
There's 67 reels of tape.

A lot of the tapes
were taped over.

At the time when Sassen was
conducting these interviews,

these audiotapes were
somewhat expensive.

[voices on recorder]

[typewriter clacking]

BETTINA STANGNETH: They
recorded the conversations

and then transcribed
them to paper,

then rerecorded more,
transcribed again.

And thus, they were left
with a few thousand pages.

Obviously, Eichmann is
flattered when he's told,

"We need you."

He is a specialist once again.

He again is "The Jew Expert."

MAN: This was the first time anyone
had taken an interest in him.

"Herr Eichmann, tell
me what you did."

He's very happy anyone
even wants to listen.

So he blossoms. He flourishes.

He suddenly returns
to his good old days,

the most beautiful time in his
life, as he himself defined it.

And thereafter, he loosens all the
restrictions he imposed on himself

and he went with it.

BETTINA STANGNETH: Eichmann says,
"Yes, this is all real. Wonderful,

I haven't seen this
in a long time.

This is Heydrich's
signature, it's all so nice."

It makes him happy to
see all his things again.

He even finds his signature,

which is obviously
very important to him.

And he also, and this
is the biggest problem,

he is proud of his life's work.

And the life work
of Mr. Eichmann

consists of mass murder of Jews.

ADOLF EICHMANN [speaking German, on recorder] I didn't
even care about the Jews that I deported to Auschwitz.

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

There was an order
from the Reichsführer

that said…

Jews who are fit to work

must be submitted
to the work process!

Jews who are unfit to work

had to be submitted to the
"Final Solution." Period.

And with that, you clearly and
openly meant physical extermination?

If that's what I said,
then yes. Obviously.

We can't do this.

We can't do this.

MAN [in English]:
It is just striking

that Sassen, for
whatever reason,

decided to continue
taping Eichmann

even once he understood

that Eichmann was
not about to deny

the nature of the Holocaust
and his role in it.

[suspenseful music playing]

ADOLF EICHMANN [speaking German]
Suppose, for example, that I needed to

organize 50 trains in
the next two months.

I heard they had
to go to Auschwitz.

I received an
order, for example,

to get a certain
city "Judenfrei"

(cleansed of Jews).

I'm sorry, I wasn't
able to get cigarettes.

There were none left.

Thank you so much for trying,
dear lady, but no worries at all.

This happened against my will. I
didn't want to cause any trouble.

And…

I asked Pohl to supply me
with the final destination.

That was my main task.

Then, in this instance,
I went to Auschwitz.

I told them, "These are the orders
I received from the head office."

"How many can you
take in per day?"

WILLEM SASSEN [speaking German] So you
weren't just responsible for the trains?

But you always had to add…

that they were designated
for special treatment.

- Yes.
- That's an important point.

I had to announce it.

That they were designated,
for special treatment?

Of course.

You know, it was routine.

It was always the same.

NARRATOR [in English]: On the
recordings, Eichmann elaborates

about his work during the war,

freely answering the
questions asked by Sassen.

Four years later, in
the Israeli court,

he sounds like a different man.

[speaking Hebrew] I am opening
the session of the trial.

I remind the defendant that
he is still under oath.

[speaking German] Yes,
I'm aware of that.

Yes, please, Mr. Hausner.

[speaking Hebrew] When you're talking
about transporting to the East,

do you mean transporting
to extermination?

[speaking German] Regarding transport
for extermination, I cannot assess this

as it wasn't determined
beforehand if they

would be submitted to
extermination or not.

That information wasn't known

by the authority in
charge of train schedules.

[speaking Hebrew] And have you
seen the abuse, the murders,

perpetrated by the German
occupiers on the Jews of Poland

in the first days
of the occupation?

[speaking German] I did not see any
murders, I did not see any torture.

At that time, I did not know
at all about such things there.

And even at this moment,
I can't say if such

events had already taken
place at that time.

At the time I was there,
not only did I not see,

I also did not hear
of such things.

We heard here about what the German
armies did in the early days of the war.

Had you not seen any of it?

How could I have heard
of or seen any of this

when I was sitting
at my desk in Berlin

and had nothing to do with it?

GIDEON HAUSNER [in
English]: I was aware

that he is following the old
line of many other Nazi criminals

who didn't have the courage

to stand up in court
and admit their guilt.

So, in order somehow

to minimize the
enormousness of their deed,

they were trying by small lies

to hide

at least part of the
most hideous deeds.

MAN: Gideon Hausner
as Attorney General

was the prosecutor in
the Eichmann trial.

He got the job as soon as he
took office as Attorney General.

He wanted it to be
the Nuremberg Trial

of the Jewish people,
for the Jewish people.

When my father was
appointed for the job,

he gathered the close
family and told us

that he would be
Eichmann's prosecutor.

He said that because it would
be a very difficult trial,

he would often be
absent from home.

And that is indeed
what happened.

And every time he did come home,

he would come with
suitcases full of documents,

scatter them throughout the
house and sit down to read

and prepare the case.

GIDEON HAUSNER: You see,
actually, I was aware all the time

that there were two
trials going on-

one in Jerusalem

where we were trying Eichmann,

and the other in the
world's public opinion,

uh, with the proceedings

televised throughout the world.

I was well aware of this,

that every word I say,
every movement I make,

is recorded and commented
upon the next day

in very many countries.

MAN: In the Eichmann Trial,
I was working as assistant

to the television director.

The trial had to be
shown to the world.

The trouble was,

there's no television in Israel,

that was the crazy thing.

So they had brought
over a team from London

and decided to film the
trial with four cameras.

It then went out
all over the world.

Now remember, we're
talking of 1961

and there was very, very little
information out at that stage.

So the purpose of the trial
was to show the world, "Look,

six million Jews died.

This is how it happened."

During the actual
filming of the trial,

well this is the main question-

Who is the real Adolf Eichmann?

What is he feeling?

Can we see anything in his face?

You know, I keep coming in for a
closeup on him to see what he's feeling.

In practice he showed nothing.

He showed no feelings at all.

NARRATOR: The speculation about Eichmann's
character continues to this day.

Is he an evil idealist

or a simple bureaucrat
carrying out orders

in the service of
the Nazi regime,

as Hannah Arendt claimed?

HANNAH ARENDT [speaking German] I don't think
Eichmann had any specific craving for power.

He was the typical functionary.

And a functionary, if he is
really nothing but a functionary,

is really a very dangerous man.

I don't think ideology
played a major role.

[in English] She thinks that Eichmann
believes that what he's doing

is simply complying
with the law of the day,

and I think that is unfortunate,

because I think that
is a misleading filter.

MAN 1: In terms of theory,
I think it is a good theory.

I think it explains quite a few
people who were in the Nazi regime.

But her theory did
not fit Eichmann.

You cannot make the distinction

between his war on the
Jews and his career.

It has become basically
one and the same.

MAN 2 [speaking German] It's very
hard to accept the things she said.

It really hurt my dad.

You take the person

who is the pinnacle
of the Nazi ideology

and turn him with a single
blow into a small cog.

So much so that people were
really tempted to believe

that under the
right circumstances

such "Eichmann" can
come out of any person.

This is so wrong

when we are dealing with a
person who is an ideologist.

[in English] I suppose there's a
very interesting question we can ask,

which is whether Hannah Arendt
would have changed her tune

if she had been able to,
um, hear the Sassen tapes.

NARRATOR: On the tapes, Eichmann confirms
his strong belief in the Nazi cause.

He admits he was not only a
bureaucrat, but also an idealist.

ADOLF EICHMANN [speaking German]
I'll tell you now in conclusion,

I, the cautious bureaucrat,

that's who I was, yes.

This cautious
bureaucrat was joined by

a fanatical

fighter

for the freedom of my blood,
the race that I belong to.

I changed from the once

cautious bureaucrat
who, of course, I was.

And how blind I was then, but then
came the inspiration that guided me.

Whatever is to the
benefit of my race

is, for me,

holy order and holy law.

UKI GONI [in English]: This
was not done in hiding,

in a secret cave,
high up in the Andes,

or hidden away in
the Amazonian jungle.

This was done in
suburban Buenos Aires

in the full view of
all their neighbors.

In the tapes, you can
hear Sassen's daughter

playing in the background.

SASKIA SASSEN: My sister
and I were always singing.

You know how that
is with children.

My mother would say:
"Stop that singing!"

It was my weapon.

I used singing as a weapon,

because he interrupted
our fun life,

you know, my father was really
a lot of fun as a father.

But when the meetings happened,

my father was
extracting information.

[children singing]

SASKIA SASSEN: He
was a journalist

and he wanted to
get at the story.

How well did you know him?

- Whom?
- Eichmann.

I think I knew him completely.

What did you make of him?

A tragical figure,
a tragical figure.

Because he was really not...

it was not his
business in reality.

He would have liked to be a
common soldier on the front.

That was his dream.

NARRATOR: As time goes by,
Eichmann's confidence increases

and he feels comfortable enough

to bring his family
to Argentina.

DEBORAH LIPSTADT: German
parents in Argentina

came to the embassy to
register their children

for their German
citizenship, German passport.

And his children were registered
under the name "Eichmann."

BETTINA STANGNETH: The kids of
German immigrants still remember

that on Sundays, they would
meet to cook orange marmalade

with the Eichmanns,
not the Klements,

not with that family
with the strange guy.

With the Eichmanns!

It was his only mistake

that he didn't want to
leave his family behind.

DEBORAH LIPSTADT:
This myth that grew up

that nobody knew he was there...

the German ex-pats
who were loyal Nazis

knew he was there. He met
with them, he talked to them.

And the Argentinian police,
they knew he was there.

The thing that was true is that

the people who knew he was there

did not care enough
to go and get him.

MAN [on TV]: Fritz Bauer
survived Hitler's death camps...

NARRATOR: Even though the Allies
stop searching for Nazi fugitives,

individuals like the German
Jewish lawyer Fritz Bauer,

continue to try to bring the
escaped criminals to justice,

using information they
receive from around the world.

GIDEON HAUSNER: If not
for private individuals,

Adolf Eichmann would have never
been captured in Buenos Aires.

First and foremost,
Lothar Hermann,

a Holocaust survivor

who happened to be Adolf
Eichmann's neighbor.

UKI GONI: Lothar Hermann, who was
the survivor who came to Argentina,

had a daughter called Sylvia

and his daughter made friends

with one of the Eichmann kids.

It was not unusual
for German Jews

to make friends with
German Nazi families,

because, in the end they were
all Germans in Argentina.

Sylvia knew that her friend
was called "Eichmann."

And Lothar Hermann, I can't say
he was reading the newspaper,

because he was blind,

but I think he was having the
newspaper read to him by his daughter

and Eichmann's name appeared

and, of course, Lothar
Hermann realized,

"that must be the
father of your friend."

So Lothar Hermann went

and immediately wrote
to Bauer in Germany,

saying it's definitely him.

[typewriter clacking]

IRMTRUD WOJAK: For Fritz Bauer, it was
safer to bring him on trial in Israel.

If the Germans would
ask in Argentina

to bring Eichmann to Germany,

he would have been warned.

And this would be the
possibility to escape.

I also think there was
no interest in Germany

to capture Eichmann.

They didn't want to
talk about the past.

[telephone ringing]

DEBORAH LIPSTADT: Bauer gave
the information to the Israelis

and nothing happened.

One has to remember that
this is the late 50s

and Israel is barely a
third-world country at that time.

I think the feeling was that,

we have current enemies
in the Arab lands, etc.

Should we fight
our current enemies

who stand possibly
to destroy us now

or should we go to settle
scores from before?

HANNA YABLONKA:
Bauer insisted,

he threatened the authorities

that he will bring
the information

into the knowledge
of the public.

That there is a credible source

that Eichmann is in Argentina

and this worked.

NARRATOR: Ben Gurion,
the country's founder,

is persuaded to bring
Eichmann to trial in Israel

and a secret mission to capture
the fugitive is launched.

BETTINA STANGNETH: When
Eichmann was kidnapped,

he was no longer
living in Buenos Aires.

He was on the outskirts in
a kind of no man's land.

And one fine day he
arrives home on the bus.

He then had to walk some
distance to get to his house.

There was no electricity,

It was an unprotected area.

It was easy to pick
him off the streets.

He walked on the
Garibaldi street

about 50 meters from his home

and I walked on that side.

We looked at each
other, I saw...

fear in his eyes, and I
said, "Uno momentito,"

and I didn't finish the question

and he retreated.

I jumped on him. We
fell into a ditch there.

He then started howling
and screaming and shouting.

The three of them dragged him,
still howling, into the car

and the race was on.

[suspenseful music playing]

[speaking Hebrew] I
must inform the Knesset

that some time ago

Israel's Security
Services discovered

one of the greatest
Nazi criminals,

Adolf Eichmann.

Adolf Eichmann is already
in detention in Israel.

MAN [speaking English]: The Yagur
base is a detention facility

of the northern district

and until Eichmann's arrival,

there were dozens
of prisoners there.

They were removed

and the detention facility was
transformed into a fortress.

Dozens of police officers
are guarding just Eichmann.

All this for only one inmate.

There are many risks with
such a detainee as this.

The primary risk is that he
could try to harm himself.

Then there are also threats that
neo-Nazis might try to break him free.

And the third scenario

is that someone
from within Israel,

either a Holocaust survivor or
someone connected to the Holocaust

or even one of the
policemen close to him,

might try to settle a score.

[speaking German] Another officer and I
were charged with a special assignment.

He guarded him inside the cell.

I guarded him outside the cell.

So Eichmann was
never out of sight.

When he went to the
bathroom, the door was open.

When he slept, we were awake.

I hated him in my heart.

[clamoring]

REPORTER [speaking German] Head of Bureau
06, in charge of the Eichmann investigation,

reported that Eichmann's
actual investigation

is being conducted on a daily
basis by a police officer.

MAN [in German] When I heard
that Eichmann is in Israel,

I was shocked.

Because I knew who Eichmann was,
I knew they were looking for him.

So I started thinking
how I could volunteer

to assist the unit that would be
formed to interrogate Eichmann.

When Eichmann was called
into the interrogation room,

when he entered,

as a Holocaust survivor,

I couldn't believe
that this nerd

controlled

millions of Jews, their
lives and their deaths.

Throughout the entire investigation,
which lasted nine months,

he decided that his
line of defense would

be that wherever he
signed with his name,

he instead would say now, "I
got an order to write this."

"I got an order to do this."

To prove that he didn't
initiate anything on his own.

I knew he had sent my parents

on a train to Belzec

to the gas chamber.

And my ten year old sister.

How could I treat him?

He's a pretty good actor.

NARRATOR [in English]: During his
interrogation by the Israeli police,

Eichmann claims that he
was only following orders.

But in Sassen's living room,

Eichmann is aware that his
words could incriminate him,

so he asks that the recordings
never be heard during his lifetime.

ADOLF EICHMANN [speaking German] Everything
recorded and transcribed here should be stored.

Only when I die, it is my wish,

may it serve as the basis
for scientific research.

But in no uncertain
terms: I don't wish

to come out of the shadows

into the light.

I have no ambition to do that.

UKI GONI [in English]: When
Eichmann was kidnapped,

suddenly Sassen realized,

here I have a chance to
make a large amount of money

by selling this.

Uh, and I'll finally be able to
make some money out of this project

that I spent so much time on.

And at the same
time, he realized,

if I do that, the other
Nazis are going to kill me,

because he's being the
worst traitor of all.

In the end,

the opportunist won the battle

over the more cautious
person inside him

and he sold the story to Life
Magazine in the United States.

NARRATOR: Four months
before the trial,

Life Magazine publishes sections
of the Eichmann recordings.

The confessions shock the world.

Never before had a Nazi
officer admitted publicly

that the Holocaust was meticulously
planned and carried out.

LAWRENCE DOUGLAS: The publication
of the Life Magazine interview

was an astonishing moment

in the international community,
to have Eichmann's words

suddenly splashed in
front of Life Magazine,

which at the time was one of the
crucial magazines in the U.S.

Obviously, it also had kind
of a world audience as well.

DEBORAH LIPSTADT: "Life" meant
that this is important to America.

It shocked people.

For many Jews

it meant the world was,

for the first time really,

taking notice of
what had happened.

Suddenly the world was
looking at the tragedy

that had destroyed one out
of every three Jews alive

on the face of the earth.

Americans realized that this man

who is being tried
is really a monster.

The article says,

there are tapes of this man
talking about what he did,

telling the stories of what he
did, describing what he did.

Everyone at least who has the least
bit of interest in this topic:

Where are these tapes?

YUVAL ELBASHAN: This
is the smoking gun.

If Eichmann says: "I
acted, I took action,

I wanted, I planned,"

he is no longer
just a bureaucrat

shifting papers from
one place to the other.

He changes things,

embellishes them

and sends them as a command.

In this sense he
becomes the leader.

MICHAEL GOLDMANN-GILEAD [speaking
German] We knew one thing:

With us, he lied
the entire time.

To Sassen, he told the truth.

LAWRENCE DOUGLAS [in English]:
When Hausner read this interview,

he immediately had
to think, "Oh my God,

"there's a whole wealth
of information out there

"that I don't yet have access to

"and how do I get
my hands on it?"

Sassen, he bought himself a
fantastic car with the money he made.

He bought a Mercedes Benz.

SASKIA SASSEN: The Nazis were
still around in Argentina.

They moved against my father,

because my father
betrayed, in their eyes.

When the Eichmann story
blows into the public,

I was 13.

My mother decides to leave.

She couldn't take it.

And I suddenly was in
charge of the household.

At 13.

And my sister was
simply terrified.

Suddenly there were like three
or five people in my house

with big guns and
I don't know what,

they were Nazi affiliates.

MAN [speaking German]
Where are the recordings?

What did you tell them? Where is
the money? Where are the tapes?

MAN 2 Damn liar! Do you
think this helps him?

Where are the documents?

SASKIA SASSEN:
I wasn't afraid,

but it was another kind
of experience that I had.

It was more like... closer
to horror than to fear.

[arguing]

NARRATOR: Among the intruders

are the sons of Adolf Eichmann.

They demand to know why
Sassen betrayed their father?

Sassen shocks them,

claiming that he
had the permission

of their mother Vera to
sell the transcripts.

Knowing their father's
defense strategy is reliant

on keeping the tapes out of
the hands of Gideon Hausner,

they demand to know the
location of the recordings.

Sassen denies knowing
their whereabouts.

[arguing continues]

Terrified, Sassen knows the tapes
could be the prosecutor's smoking gun.

He hides them in a safe place.

Can he keep the tapes away from those
looking to use them against Eichmann?

On the next episode
ofThe Devils' Confession:

The Lost Eichmann Tapes

Hausner focuses on
obtaining the transcripts

used for the Life
Magazine article

as the smoking gun that will prove
Eichmann's guilt to the world.

During a meeting
with his lawyer,

Eichmann is passed
an encrypted code

from the Nazi
journalist Willem Sassen

that emboldens his defense.

"Don't worry. I've
hidden the tapes."

NARRATOR: As the Berlin
Wall is being built

and sides are taken
in the Cold War,

West German officials
fear Eichmann's recordings

will reveal that their new
government is riddled with Nazis.

LAWRENCE DOUGLAS: The
Germans were very concerned.

There were a lot of Nazis
who remained in positions

of high power within
Germany itself.

NARRATOR: And the
fledgling State of Israel

decides the security
of their country

far outweighs the importance

of Attorney General
Hausner's case

against Eichmann.

[closing theme music playing]