All language subtitles for The.Devils.Confession.The.Lost.Eichmann.Tapes.1of3.1080p.x264.AC3.MVGroup.Forum

Eichmann came once a week.

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.

My father recorded
all that stuff.

WILLEM SASSEN
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
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.

It's a fly of Jewish nature.

WOMAN
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
All rise!

Adolf Eichmann.

The extended arm of Hitler's evil regime.

NARRATOR Nazis have always
denied their role in the Holocaust

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

NARRATOR 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.

But after
his capture by Israel,

Eichmann
denies everything...

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 Hoping
the tapes will never be heard

during his trial
in Jerusalem.

One should see to bring the tapes

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

Yes.

MAN The story
of the Eichmann Trial,

60 years later,

still not fully told.

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.

Had we killed 10.3 million Jews,

then I would be satisfied and would say,

good, we exterminated an enemy.

REPORTER 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.

This trial was of critical
importance.

It was the beginning
of the process

of the emergence
of the Holocaust

from the shadows of history.

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
All rise!

Case 704061.

The Attorney General of Israel,

Mr. Gideon Hausner against Adolf Eichmann.

DEBORAH LIPSTADT 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
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. "

"The prince
of darkness is a gentleman. "

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.

Yes.

You are charged before this court

with an indictment containing 15 charges.

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
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
Do you plead guilty or not guilty
to the first charge?

I plead not guilty as charged.

Quiet.

WOMAN 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
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. "

Eichmann continually insisted

that he was simply
following orders.

I plead not guilty as charged.

In the spirit of the charge, not guilty.

NARRATOR 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. "

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
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
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 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.

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.

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.

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.

Eichmann secures
forged identity papers

with plans
to escape the country,

but is caught by the Allies.

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
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
And what were you thinking

during this first inspection?

ADOLF EICHMANN
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 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!

Judges from Britain,
America, Russia and France

assembled
in Nuremberg's courthouse.

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.

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 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.

Eichmann tells
Sassen in Argentina

the story of the strange
escape route

he used to avoid capture.

WILLEM SASSEN
But tell me, you said that you
went through Bavaria?

ADOLF EICHMANN
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.

UKI GONI
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.

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.

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. "

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.

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.

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.

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

to a somewhat
sloppy-looking bureaucrat.

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.

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.

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.

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. "

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.

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.

Goöbbels, the Nazi
minister of propaganda,

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

WILLEM SASSEN
"In squares and street corners and parks,

everywhere the Soviets have
their positions…"

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

Eichmann was a celebrity.

People fought
to be close to him.

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

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.

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. "

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.

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
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
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.

ADOLF EICHMANN
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"

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
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 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.

I am opening the session of the trial.

I remind the defendant
that he is still under oath.

Yes, I'm aware of that.

Yes, please, Mr. Hausner.

When you're talking
about transporting to the East,

do you mean transporting to extermination?

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.

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?

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
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.

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.

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.

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.

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
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.

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.

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
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.

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.

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
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
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.

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.

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.

As time goes by, Eichmann's
confidence increases

and he feels
comfortable enough

to bring his family
to Argentina.

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. "

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.

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 Fritz Bauer survived
Hitler's death camps...

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.

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.

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.

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.

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?

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.

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.

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.

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 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.

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.

REPORTER
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
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 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
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
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.

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.

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.

"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?

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
We knew one thing:

With us, he lied the entire time.

To Sassen, he told the truth.

LAWRENCE DOUGLAS 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.

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
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?

I wasn't afraid,

but it was another kind
of experience that I had.

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

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.

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. "

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.

The Germans
were very concerned.

There were a lot of Nazis
who remained in positions

of high power
within Germany itself.

And the fledgling
State of Israel

decides the security
of their country

far outweighs the importance

of Attorney General
Hausner's case

against Eichmann.