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Historys Greatest Mysteries - Season 7 - Episode 02: The Hunt for Adolf Eichmann: Case Closed
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00:03tonight the global manhunt for a nazi war criminal who vanished after the holocaust
00:09and the stunning operation that finally brought him to justice adolf eichmann was the architect
00:16of the nazi holocaust he murdered millions of jews yet the allies never even knew his name
00:24he takes this idea of the final solution and turns it into almost an assembly line process
00:30at the end of world war ii eichmann hides in plain sight there's so much chaos that the
00:37allies don't even realize that they have eichmann in custody and by the time they realize it he's
00:43vanished nazi hunters are convinced that eichmann is still alive but a decade passes and no one knows
00:49where he could possibly be now we explore the top theories surrounding adolf eichmann's whereabouts
00:57leading up to his dramatic capture these nazis in germany end up with a really surprising ally
01:03the catholic church an israeli investigator receives a tip-off that adolf eichmann has been recently
01:09spotted in kuwait there was only one existing photograph of eichmann it's really like hunting
01:16a ghost what really happened to adolf eichmann
01:39it's january 1942 and in a lakeside mansion near berlin
01:4515 senior nazi officials are meeting the topic the systematic annihilation of europe's jews
01:53what the nazis refer to as the final solution along with these high officials there's one
02:00lieutenant colonel very quiet very unassuming taking notes but he's also providing information like
02:07the amount of jews in different countries this is adolf eichmann eichmann is not really
02:14well known as a front man of the nazis he's more of a behind the scenes bureaucrat and he really
02:20views
02:21the killing of millions of jews as sort of this logistical problem that he's in charge of solving
02:28eichmann grows up in austria the son of an accountant he joins the nazi party in 1932
02:35at age 26 eichmann had joined the sd the ss's intelligence agency in 1934 in 1936 he's recruited
02:46by a member of the sd to join the so-called jewish affairs division and eventually he comes to take
02:51over
02:52this division he makes a name for himself after the annexation of austria where he works out a system
02:58for basically speeding up the emigration of jewish populations outside of germany he figures out how to
03:06conduct these mass deportations as fast as possible he devises a system to give deportation papers to
03:13jewish people on the spot while also stripping them of their possessions stripping them of the wealth
03:18and getting them essentially out of the country within less than an hour's time once world war ii
03:24starts adolf eichmann becomes more and more fanatical and once the final solution is decided upon
03:31he becomes the central operational figure behind the holocaust hitler is the one who's ordering
03:37these atrocities but eichmann is the bureaucrat in charge of actually carrying them out
03:43there are a lot of pieces of information that come out of nazi germany during world war ii and it's
03:50just so hard for westerners to comprehend this scale of tragedy that it's not until we start to overrun
03:58some of the outlying murder camps that we can't deny what's going on anymore in january of 1945
04:06hitler retreats to his bunker by april of that year he's dead and then on may 7th of 1945 the
04:14germans
04:14surrender despite the fact that many high-ranking nazis have been captured eichmann is never found
04:23and on top of that most of the world has never even heard his name six months go by before
04:32the public
04:32finally learns about adolf eichmann and his role in the holocaust in november of 1945 all eyes are on
04:41nuremberg germany where 24 nazi officials are put on trial for their atrocities during world war ii
04:47and it's here that adolf eichmann's name first comes up prosecutors quote this hungarian jewish leader
04:54who tells the story of a mass deportation of hungarian jews from budapest so there's a special
05:02unit that is running operations there and eichmann is in charge of that unit he is the one who's
05:08going to decide who's going to the gas chambers and who will live a few weeks later on january 3rd
05:161946
05:18an ss captain with ties to eichmann is called to testify he had joined the nazis intelligence service
05:26and ended up becoming one of eichmann's men in the so-called jewish affairs division of the gestapo
05:32he claims that he pushed back against this plan to kill millions of jews but eichmann simply told him
05:38you're being too sentimental about it the nuremberg testimony gives eichmann worldwide notoriety
05:46but his whereabouts are still unknown finding eichmann won't be easy but after the revelations
05:53at nuremberg it's a priority the question is where could he be there are millions of germans packed
06:02into pow camps all over europe the americans alone have two million in captivity but these camps are
06:09cramped they're not well organized they don't have the names of everybody in them but the obvious
06:14place to look for eichmann is in pow camps around europe
06:23despite the fact that most of the world has never heard the name adolf eichmann the u.s counter
06:29intelligence corps has actually been compiling a dossier on him for months investigators go and
06:34track down eichmann's wife vera they find her in austria she claims that she hasn't seen her husband in
06:41months and she doesn't even have a photograph of him it's clear that he was really planning ahead
06:46here he was making sure that there were no pictures of him left over ss officers tell allied
06:52officials that eichmann was still alive at the end of the war and he probably still is they don't think
06:58that eichmann would have taken his own life the way that other nazi officials did at this time
07:03with all of the chaos and the disorganization and the disarray of these pow camps it becomes very
07:09very likely that eichmann is using these pow camps to hide out the allies also assume that he's using
07:16an alias the cic distributes notices to their regional offices and they call eichmann quote
07:21of the highest importance among war criminals as it turns out the americans already have eichmann
07:29in custody they just don't know it at the end of the war eichmann actually goes down into austria
07:37to hide out and there are tons of nazis all over the place hiding from the allies he meets with
07:43his
07:43wife and gives her instructions on how to deal with allied investigators which he knows are coming
07:49his plan is to head northwest through germany with his assistant staying in homes of people who
07:55are sympathetic to former nazis a little later in may however eichmann and his assistant are picked
08:00up by u.s army patrol and they're taken to a us pow camp in weiden eichmann gives a false
08:08name a false
08:08identity by the name of adolf barth in the camp eichmann plots how to keep from being discovered
08:16and how to escape eichmann is going to be identified sooner or later because every ss officer
08:24like eichmann has a unique identifier that's not common in the rest of the german wehrmacht
08:29every ss soldier has his blood type tattooed inside his armpit and that means if you make all of the
08:37captives take off their shirts and hold their hands up in the air you can quickly pick out fanatical
08:42nazis he tries to burn that tattoo with cigarettes but it doesn't work so he's not going to be able
08:47to claim he's not a member of the ss but there are plenty of ss men who are pow's at
08:52the end of the
08:52war so what he tells the allied officials is that his name is actually otto eichmann and then he's a
08:58lieutenant colonel in the ss eichmann makes the switch thinking eichmann is close enough to his real
09:05surname if an old acquaintance were to suddenly blurt out his real name eichmann in the camp
09:11it would be less likely to rouse suspicion eichmann knows that he can't play this game forever he's
09:18gotten through a couple of interrogations undetected but he knows it's only a matter of time before he's
09:23found out to be who he really is he finds some ss officers in the camp who help him in
09:31his escape
09:31he's able to forge papers that pass him off as a hunter in the area and the ss officers in
09:40the camp
09:40also get him some civilian clothes and one night eichmann is able to climb over a section of barbed
09:46wire fence that isn't viewed by any camp guards and he's able to make his escape into the surrounding
09:52woods and there he vanishes authorities learn that an ss officer named otto eichmann has escaped
09:59and so they interrogate all the other former ss officers that are in the camp and those people
10:05confirm that otto eichmann actually is adolf eichmann it really shows how disorganized the
10:12situation in europe is at the end of 45 and beginning of 46 the allies wind up realizing that
10:17they've been looking for eichmann for months when in reality he was hiding right underneath their nose
10:21inside one of their own compounds and so it's a little embarrassing it's a little frustrating
10:26but it also means that they're pretty hot on his tail in the wake of world war ii the nuremberg
10:35military tribunal declared the ss a criminal organization citing its direct involvement in
10:41war atrocities the allied powers would go on to arrest hundreds of ss officials but as of 1946
10:49one of the most notorious of these is still missing adolf eichmann it's not just allied officials
10:57who are searching for eichmann we also have the hagana the jewish intelligence services that
11:03ultimately became the idf once the israeli state was established the hagana try to find eichmann by
11:10assembling this team of five operatives that are going to track his family they launched this much
11:15more elaborate investigation than the allied forces had the team travels to austria and after months of
11:23searching locates the current homes of eichmann's wife and brother otto as the members of hagana start
11:31tracking vera and her brother-in-law what they discover is the two of them regularly take train
11:37trips out to the austrian countryside basically between linds and salzburg they always travel separately
11:43but arrive at the same time and they then walk into the forest essentially to a two-story house
11:50that's kind of camouflaged from casual observation the team investigates the house and what they find
11:57is there's four men living in it and they never come out but every night an individual comes to the
12:03door and brings them food the five-man team from a distance sees one of these figures that they think
12:09looks like eichmann but they really can't tell they theorize that this is why vera and his brother are
12:15coming and staying and visiting for a while sensing they may have found their man the operatives stage
12:22a raid on the chalet one night while the men are having dinner inside this house five members of hagana
12:30approach two of them kick in the door while the other ones pull guns on the men inside this secluded
12:36home
12:36they single out the individual that they think might be adolf eichmann and they remove him from
12:41the house the operatives are shouting questions at the man that they're convinced is adolf eichmann but
12:46the man is telling them i'm not adolf eichmann my name is wolfgang bauer but after a bit of time
12:51bauer
12:51reveals that he actually was an ss officer but he's still not the man that they're looking for
12:58he's not eichmann but he knows eichmann he served with eichmann and he was actually part of the
13:04einstadsgruppen that eichmann oversaw this was this mobile death squad that came in and exterminated jews
13:13usually by shooting them they killed millions of people
13:19still convinced the man is eichmann himself the operatives drag him out into a waiting car and drive
13:25him deeper into the woods they say if you're not eichmann why are eichmann's wife and brother
13:33continually visiting you and his only answer is that they were friends with the owner of the chalet
13:38where they were staying they continue peppering him with questions one of the operatives is pointing
13:43a gun directly at his chest and bauer basically just laughs at the operatives and he tells them
13:48all you can do is kill me so that's what the operatives do they pump bullets into his chest
13:57and they bury him in a shallow grave and then later the hagana go back to their superiors and they
14:02tell
14:02them that they have successfully killed adolf eichmann
14:11nobody's quite sure what to think about the eichmann situation there are some that are convinced that
14:16hagana had gotten the wrong man that in fact the individual they shot really was wolfgang bauer
14:21and he was telling the truth he wasn't eichmann others on the other hand are convinced that
14:26adolf eichmann is killed by the hagana and it's officially over case closed as for the allied forces
14:34they're not as worried anymore about looking for nazi war criminals considering that by 1947 the allied
14:42forces are dealing with in their minds a much bigger deal which is the burgeoning cold war
14:47one man still in pursuit is an austrian holocaust survivor named simon wiesenthal who's dedicated
14:55his life to hunting down nazi war criminals wiesenthal becomes convinced that the hagana victim was not
15:03eichmann that this individual was someone else who might have been connected to him in fact wiesenthal
15:08is fairly frustrated that they shot the individual rather than bringing him in for deeper interrogation
15:14because he might have been able to offer some clues as to eichmann's actual whereabouts but he has
15:20to work with the materials that are available to him so he begins at the beginning and he starts looking
15:25at the individuals that were closest to eichmann working with other investigators wiesenthal is able
15:32to source a photo of eichmann finally putting a face to the notorious nazi criminal in december of 1947
15:40wiesenthal is called to austria to the us cic headquarters for an urgent meeting he's told there
15:47that eichmann's wife vera has just put in an application to have her husband legally declared
15:53dead now she says she does this in the interest of their children but if he is in fact declared
15:59dead
15:59the warrants that are out on eichmann will disappear the search for him will officially
16:04be over and the proof of the death is that there's a report coming from a government officer in
16:11czechoslovakia named lucas that he witnessed eichmann being killed by a soviet firing squad
16:18the end of world war ii paul lucas swears in an affidavit that eichmann along with other nazis were
16:31apprehended by the red army they were lined up shoulder to shoulder and executed on april 30th
16:381945 by members of the soviet army wiesenthal is not buying it he has interviewed people
16:46in the pow camps who said that they saw eichmann after april of 1945 and he starts thinking vera
16:53has probably submitted this application as an attempt to end the hunt for her husband
16:59wiesenthal petitions the court to essentially postpone the decision about whether eichmann was
17:04alive or dead wiesenthal thinks that given a little bit of time he can actually prove that eichmann is
17:09still alive he sends investigators to prague to both find out more evidence on eichmann and also to
17:16basically check the background on lucas so this investigation is three years after this alleged
17:22shooting so there's really no evidence to be found there but what wiesenthal's researchers do
17:28find it's rather fascinating is that lucas is married to vera's sister when wiesenthal approaches
17:37the judge and points out that the star witness suggesting that eichmann was dead is actually
17:42married to his wife's sister the judge is mortified because that's something that the witness should have
17:48revealed at the very beginning of the discussion ultimately the judge throws the case out he can't
17:53rule eichmann dead on the basis of individuals testifying who had a vested interest in an outcome
18:00so to wiesenthal this pretty much confirms his suspicions eichmann is still alive and doing whatever
18:08he can to elude the long arm of justice so eichmann could presumably be anywhere
18:19by 1950 with the cold war heating up the allied powers are less focused on hunting nazi war criminals
18:28but it remains risky for nazi fugitives even those with fake identities to pass through border checkpoints
18:34and escape europe nazi hunters like simon wiesenthal have no idea if eichmann's still in germany
18:43or could have escaped thousands of miles away in a major surprise to western powers some of the
18:51former nazis are actually gaining assistance escaping europe thanks to the catholic church the catholic
18:58church sees the nazis as one of the great ways to fight against the evils of communism there are still
19:05plenty of fascist sympathizers after world war ii and they start creating these secret routes via safe
19:12houses that are called rat lines as a way to help nazis escape to safer areas and the catholic church
19:20plays a role in this because some of these rat lines some of these safe houses are monasteries that
19:26exist in places like germany austria switzerland spain and italy you have a number of cardinals and a
19:34number of upper level catholic administrators who are sympathetic to the nazis not because of their
19:40anti-jewish stance but because they saw them as an ally in the fight against communism which they saw
19:46as much worse than even nazism italy is vital to all this because in rome there's a catholic bishop
19:54named alois hudal who was very pro-nazi and he's got the ability to make the fake papers to get
20:02these
20:02former nazis out of europe these papers are accepted by the red cross no questions asked the red cross is
20:09really overseeing the flow of refugees and so these former nazis and ss officers are basically able to
20:17just blend in with other refugees and being able to get out of the country by the early 1950s
20:24investigators believe it's possible eichmann has taken advantage of the rat lines about 90 percent of
20:32nazis escaped europe through italy or spain and they were on their way most of them to south america
20:39argentina is a safe haven for these germans president juan peron was a close ally of hitler's
20:45during the war so hudal knew exactly who he was helping here he writes to peron actually in 1948 and
20:53asks for 5 000 visas to help nazis escape so argentina seems like a good place to try to start
21:00looking
21:00for eichmann
21:08there are rumors that start to circulate that by the 1950s eichmann has fled to argentina and has
21:15started a life there now for the most part the newly formed west german government largely ignores
21:23a lot of these rumors but there's one prosecutor that just will not let this information go
21:28he's a german jewish prosecutor by the name of fritz bauer
21:34he and his family had fled from german persecution early on in the third reich so he escaped some of
21:41the
21:41the worst evils of the holocaust but when he returns to germany in the post-war era he's determined
21:47to set some of the wrongs right bauer can't be too open with what he's up to because he doesn't
21:53know
21:53who in the german hierarchy might be sympathetic to those individuals and might tip them off to the
21:59possibility of their discovery in september 1957 bauer receives a letter from lothar hermann a blind
22:07attorney living in argentina hermann is one of the german expats living in argentina he's jewish and
22:16part of a rather large jewish population even though peron is really anti-semitic there's a population
22:22of about 400 000 jews living in argentina hermann is a survivor of one of the most notorious concentration
22:31camps of world war ii dachau in fact he endured such vicious beatings during his time
22:37at the camp that he actually lost his eyesight he immigrates to argentina in 1938 with his wife
22:44and his daughter in 1956 he's living in a suburb of buenos aires with his family
22:51and his daughter sylvia is dating this young german expat named nick
22:59so one night while having dinner over at the hermann's house young nick says that his dad was a high
23:05official in the wehrmacht the german army nick has no idea that he's talking to a jewish family
23:11the hermann's do not publicize the fact that they're jewish so he just keeps talking and talking
23:17and eventually says it's a shame the nazis were never able to complete their mission of extermination
23:23the hermann family just sits quietly the father doesn't say anything he's used to hearing anti-semitic
23:30comments he knows that this is just how it goes sometimes he's disappointed that his daughter is
23:36dating him i'm sure but he just lets it go a few months later the hermann family moved a couple
23:42of
23:42hundred miles away to another town and the boyfriend is forgotten one day in april of 1957 sylvia is reading
23:51an article in the newspaper for her father about nazi war criminals and she mentions the name adolf eichmann
23:57when she says her boyfriend nick said that his last name is eichmann lothar hermann instantly remembers
24:07the boy's hateful comments at the dinner table sylvia is still in touch with nick but he's never given
24:14her his home address he gives her a different address to write to to get to him and oddly enough
24:21while sylvia and nick were dating he never invited her over to his house so lothar immediately suspects
24:28that this might be adolf eichmann's son they want to tell the german authorities or the argentinian
24:35authorities but they really can't because nazi sympathizers are everywhere at this point so instead
24:41they write a letter to the prosecutors in frankfurt west germany and that's the letter that makes
24:47its way to fritz bauer so bauer's intrigued he knows that eichmann's son is named klaus but in german
24:54klaus is actually short for nicholas so this seems promising but he needs more information such as an
25:01address lothar and sylvia take a 10-hour train ride from their home back to the suburb of olivos and
25:11they
25:12pretty much spend the day just walking around the town until sylvia runs into a mutual friend of hers
25:19and nick's that tells her where nick's house is so he gives her the address in 1957 teenager sylvia
25:30hermann and her father lothar are convinced cynthia's old boyfriend is the son of nazi war criminal adolf eichmann
25:40they've tracked him to the olivos suburb of buenos aires but need to confirm his identity before
25:47passing it along to the authorities sylvia goes to the house the door is answered by a woman who
25:54reluctantly lets her in there is a middle-aged man in glasses and she thinks that he looks like the
26:01guy
26:02in the picture that fritz bauer had sent to her of adolf eichmann but she's not totally sure so she
26:08asks
26:08him she says are you mr eichmann are you nick's father and he sort of tersely responds no i'm his
26:14uncle so she sits down and just strikes up a pleasant conversation with him nick comes home
26:23shortly thereafter and sees sylvia says what are you doing here oh i just stopped to say hi i have
26:29to go i have to go the middle-aged man wearing glasses who has claimed to be the uncle stands
26:36up to
26:36walker to the door and nick says no father i can walk her to the door myself so it would
26:43seem that the
26:44hermons have stumbled on something pretty suspicious the fact that it took all this time to figure out
26:52nick's address why was he being so cagey about where he lives and then when sylvia arrives to the house
26:59the woman that answers the door reluctantly lets her in the man claims to be nick's uncle but then nick
27:06refers to him as father something just is not adding up in this situation although fritz bauer is
27:14intrigued he's got a problem he can't really rely on german or argentinian authorities to follow up on
27:20this information there's just too many nazi sympathizers within both of those populations so
27:26instead he turns to the new israeli intelligence service the massad the massad go to the house
27:33that hermans had told them about but when they get there they don't think it's the right address it is
27:38ramshackle it's worn out and i just can't believe that an ss officer of the rank and fortune of eichmann
27:46would be living there as they watch the house they just don't see anybody coming and going that
27:52matches eichmann's description so they're pretty certain this is a case of mistaken identity
27:58the massad let the tip go the hermans though they don't want to let this go so in april of
28:041958 they're
28:05going through public records and they find out that the home is owned by a guy named francisco schmidt
28:12and they think that this is just the latest alias of adolf eichmann and so they go back to the
28:17massad and they say look into francisco schmidt and they do and they say there's no way that francisco
28:24schmidt is actually adolf eichmann so at this point they pause their contact with the hermans because
28:31they just think that they're full of unreliable information a year later in august of 1959
28:38an independent nazi investigator tuvia friedman says that he's been in contact with some high
28:44government officials in germany and they've told him that eichmann is not in argentina he's in kuwait
28:56now kuwait at this time is this sort of obscure british territory there's only about 300 000 people
29:03living there north africa and the middle east are actually very popular destinations for ex-nazis
29:09friedman immediately contacts the israeli defense ministry and he says that eichmann is in kuwait you
29:16should send some agents over there to go pick him up but the ministry pretty much ignores friedman entirely
29:24israel is a brand new country and has a long list of security priorities and freeman realizes that
29:30eichmann is not really the top of the list or maybe even the middle of it but he's not going
29:35to give up
29:35so friedman contacts an israeli newspaper man and says have i got a scoop for you adolf eichmann the
29:43former nazi is living in kuwait friedman suddenly becomes an international celebrity and he uses his
29:51fame to draw attention to the fact that eichmann has not been located other nazi hunters are not happy
29:57they believe it's going to do nothing but drive eichmann either underground or out of kuwait
30:03no solid evidence of eichmann turns up in kuwait and the trail once again seems to run cold
30:11nevertheless friedman is pleased with what he did because now he's put adolf eichmann's name in
30:18newspapers all over the world and this becomes a way to potentially inspire not only nazi hunters but
30:28actual governments to locate this nazi war criminal and bring him to justice
30:37in late 1959 there's a rash of anti-semitic activity throughout west germany
30:43reportedly swastikas are painted on nearly 700 jewish sites across the country along with graffiti
30:50reading jews out it's a painful time but the attacks do help galvanize all the parties that are or
30:59should be hunting down nazi war criminals it is important to acknowledge that there were still nazi
31:06sympathies even though they had been defeated in world war ii that didn't mean that pro-nazi sentiment
31:13completely disappeared this can explain why it took west germany so long to take the hunt for eichmann
31:21seriously up to this point there has been a lot of foot dragging west german intelligence has been
31:27sitting on a lot of evidence that adolf eichmann is alive in argentina and living under an assumed name
31:33after years of pursuing eichmann west german prosecutor fritz bauer receives new intel pointing
31:42him to eichmann's alleged alias bauer gets a tip from a man named gerhard clamor and clamor used to work
31:50for a construction company in northern argentina with a guy named ricardo clement he's never forgotten
31:58the man's face and he's seen it in news coverage as the years have gone by and he is thoroughly
32:03convinced that ricardo clement is actually adolf eichmann now he was german but he wasn't a nazi he
32:10was anti-nazi as so many germans were and so he spends the 1950s trying multiple times to notify the
32:18german government that ricardo clement is there in argentina and that he is adolf eichmann
32:30in an amazing coincidence clamor is in buenos ares and he sees a man get off the bus that he
32:37recognizes as his old co-worker ricardo clement he follows the man and writes down the address where
32:45the man goes home finally in december of 1959 we might have definitive evidence of where adolf
32:51eichmann is hiding clamors findings make their way to fritz bauer and this is when
32:57bauer starts to slowly put together the pieces of this puzzle he knows the name ricardo clement
33:04because that information was provided to him by the hermans when sylvia found that name registered
33:09on the electric meter of the house that he's living in on top of that clamor also has a photograph
33:16of him and ricardo clement standing together and when bauer takes this photograph and puts it by
33:24the photo that they have of adolf eichmann the resemblance is incredibly striking a few months
33:33later bauer reaches out to the mossad he knows where eichmann is hiding he just hopes it's not too late
33:41the mossad recognizes that they might have made a mistake about whether or not eichmann is still alive
33:47and well in argentina in march of 1960 a new mossad agent is sent to argentina and he starts to
33:53investigate the agent who is assigned this case is zvi aharoni he was known as being very methodical
34:00very unflappable he could do just about any job that needed to be done while he and his mother had
34:06escaped the holocaust and gotten to palestine by 1938 the entire rest of his family was killed so the
34:15idea that he could capture eichmann was personal zvi goes to the neighborhood and checks out the house
34:22in buenos aires only to find that ricardo clement has just recently moved out there's a team of painters
34:29painting the house so zvi finds an ally in this young argentinian kid in the neighborhood
34:36who goes up to the painters and is trying to get the address of where ricardo clement moved
34:41he claims to be determined to deliver a package to the family that had previously inhabited the home
34:48and it turns out one of the workers is actually friends with one of the clement family's sons
34:54and after a little more discussion he's persuaded to provide the new address where the clement's family
34:59resides this new property was purchased by eichmann's wife using her maiden name and they've moved to san
35:07fernando which is just outside of buenos aires the address is 14 garibaldi street using caution
35:16aharoni surveils the address and during his surveillance he notices a middle-aged man
35:24that bears a pretty striking resemblance to adolf eichmann and with this information aharoni
35:31contacts the massad and tells them quote the driver is black this is a code that basically
35:39tells the massad that eichmann has been found
35:45in the spring of 1960 the war criminal investigation that began with a hunch from a blind attorney and
35:53his teenage daughter reaches the desk of israeli prime minister david ben-gurion with this information
36:00the prime minister of israel ben-gurion decides to send an 11-man team of musad agents to buenos aires
36:07to capture eichmann and bring him back to israel it's called operation finale the massad agents run
36:15surveillance on eichmann for two months and they track all of his movements because the better they
36:21know where he goes where he stops what he does during the day it'll be much easier to figure out
36:26when's
36:27the best time to strike and they figure out he gets off the same bus every single day and makes
36:32this
36:32short walk to his house and that's when they'll strike on the evening of may 11 1960 the operation
36:40unfolds like a scene from a spy novel adolf eichmann has become very set in his daily patterns every day
36:48he climbs off of a city bus at 7 40 p.m and he follows the same path to his
36:54house just 110 yards
36:56away but on this night 7 40 passes and eichmann's bus has yet to arrive massad operators are waiting
37:06for him near the bus stop they have a limousine full of agents they even have a couple guys outside
37:11of the car who are sort of pretending to work under the hood there's another guy in a backup car
37:17behind
37:17them 7 40 comes and goes the bus doesn't come so now they're confused this is not how they were
37:25expecting things to go down it's getting later and later and they realize really the longer that they
37:31sit there the more likely it is that they're gonna get noticed by someone so finally a bus arrives
37:39the agent's blood pressure rises they know that this is the moment but the bus doesn't stop it just whizzes
37:45by the massad agents probably starting to get a little bit nervous what if somebody tipped off eichmann
37:52so we should abort for tonight maybe we'll try again later with the hopes that this operation will work
37:58but then five minutes later at 8 0 5 pm another bus pulls up to the bus stop 25 minutes
38:06late their
38:07suspect steps off the bus he starts making the walk to his street they're going to let him get to
38:13his
38:13street and it's there that an agent named peter malkin goes up to him and says un momentito senor
38:22and he must know something's up because he takes off running malkin has to go and and really tackle him
38:29to the ground after struggle they drag him into the limousine and while they're in the car he's
38:35strangely silent and then suddenly in perfect german he says to them i am resigned to my fate now before
38:45this the massad agents were 99 sure this was eichmann after he says this they know 100 they've got their
38:53man
38:58for nine ten stays the massad agents keep eichmann sequestered in a safe house while trying to figure
39:04out the details of his extraction because you have to understand these massad agents are in a sovereign
39:09nation they have just apprehended a citizen of that nation and now they're going to try to extradite
39:17this person out of the country without the argentinian government knowing so they have to be
39:23very very careful about every step that they take because if something goes wrong eichmann could be
39:29allowed to stay in argentina and not be extradited back to israel what they end up doing could be a
39:37part of a movie they drug him put him in a flight crew uniform and take him to the airport
39:44they drag him
39:45along as if he's just some drunk pilot that they're going to put on the plane they're very nonchalant
39:51laughing about this here's this drunk pilot no big deal this isn't adolf eichmann the architect of
39:57the holocaust this isn't a prisoner who we've drugged this is just some drunk flight crew member who we're
40:03going to take home before he gets in trouble they finally get to israel eichmann is caught he knows that
40:11he is and he's resigned to his fate now at long last one of the primary engineers of the holocaust
40:19will stand trial for his crimes eichmann's trial commences in 1961 and his defense essentially
40:28suggests that he's a low-ranking bureaucrat who was merely following orders and doing his job
40:33however as the trial develops the evidence makes it clear that eichmann was absolutely central to the
40:39propagation of the holocaust eichmann is ultimately found guilty of war crimes against humanity
40:47is sentenced to death and is hanged for his crimes on june 1st 1962
40:56government authorities eventually took down eichmann but the details of his capture remind us of the role
41:03played by ordinary people the hermann's a blind lawyer and his teenage daughter with no training
41:09were the first to truly expose eichmann's new life in argentina and they never gave up seeking justice
41:15i'm lawrence fishburne thank you for watching this case closed episode of history's greatest mysteries
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