Original subtitles

- [Laurence] Tonight, the global manhunt for a Nazi war criminal

who vanished after the Holocaust

and the stunning operation

that finally brought him to justice.

- [Christina] Adolf Eichmann was the architect of the Nazi

Nazi Holocaust.

- [Sami] He murdered millions of Jews,

yet the Allies never even knew his name.

- [Katherine] He takes this idea of the Final Solution

and turns it into almost an assembly line process.

- At the end of World War II, Eichmann hides in plain sight.

- [Kevin] There's so much chaos that the Allies don't even

realize that they have Eichmann in custody.

And by the time they realize it, he's vanished.

- [Sami] Nazi hunters are convinced that Eichmann is still

alive, but a decade passes and no one knows

where he could possibly be.

- Now we explore the top theories

surrounding Adolf Eichmann's whereabouts

leading up to his dramatic capture.

- [Katherine] These Nazis in Germany end up

with a really surprising ally, the Catholic Church.

- [Paul] An Israeli investigator receives a tip off

that Adolf Eichmann has been recently spotted in Kuwait.

- [Christina] There was only one existing photograph of Eichmann.

It's really like hunting a ghost.

- What really happened to Adolf Eichmann?

[dramatic music]

[dramatic music]

[dramatic music]

- [Laurence] It's January, 1942,

and in a lakeside mansion near Berlin,

15 senior Nazi officials are meeting.

The topic, the systematic annihilation of Europe's Jews,

what the Nazis refer to as the Final Solution.

- Along with these high officials,

there's one lieutenant colonel,

very quiet, very unassuming, taking notes,

but he's also providing information

like the amount of Jews in different countries.

[dramatic music]

This is Adolf Eichmann.

- [Amory] Eichmann is not really well known

as a front man of the Nazis.

He's more of a behind the scenes bureaucrat.

And he really views the killing of millions of Jews

as sort of this logistical problem

that he's in charge of solving.

[dramatic music]

- [Laurence] Eichmann grows up in Austria,

the son of an accountant.

He joins the Nazi Party in 1932 at age 26.

- [Anand] Eichmann had joined the SD,

the SS's intelligence agency in 1934.

In 1936, he's recruited by a member of the SD

to join the so-called Jewish Affairs Division.

And eventually he comes to take over this division.

He makes a name for himself after the annexation of Austria,

where he works out a system

for basically speeding up the immigration

of Jewish populations outside of Germany.

- [Sami] He figures out how to conduct these mass deportations

as fast as possible.

He devises a system to give deportation papers

to Jewish people on the spot

while also stripping them of their possession,

stripping them of the wealth,

and getting them essentially out of the country

within less than an hour's time.

- [Amory] Once World War II starts,

Adolf Eichmann becomes more and more fanatical.

And once the Final Solution is decided upon,

he becomes the central operational figure

behind the Holocaust.

Hitler is the one who's ordering these atrocities,

but Eichmann is the bureaucrat

in charge of actually carrying them out.

[dramatic music]

- [Paul] There are a lot of pieces of information

that come out of Nazi Germany during World War II.

And it's just so hard for Westerners

to comprehend this scale of tragedy

that it's not until we start to overrun

some of the outlying murder camps

that we can't deny what's going on anymore.

- [Amory] In January of 1945, Hitler retreats to his bunker.

By April of that year, he's dead.

And then on May 7th of 1945, the Germans surrender.

- [Sami] Despite the fact that many high-ranking Nazis

have been captured, Eichmann is never found.

And on top of that, most of the world

has never even heard his name.

- [Laurence] Six months go by

before the public finally learns about Adolf Eichmann

and his role in the Holocaust.

- [Kevin] In November of 1945, all eyes are on Nuremberg,

Germany, where 24 Nazi officials are put on trial

for their atrocities during World War II.

And it's here that Adolf Eichmann's name first comes up.

- [Amory] Prosecutors quote this Hungarian Jewish leader

who tells the story of a mass deportation

of Hungarian Jews from Budapest.

So, there's a special unit that is running operations there

and Eichmann is in charge of that unit.

He is the one who's gonna decide

who's going to the gas chambers and who will live.

[dramatic music]

- [Laurence] A few weeks later, on January 3rd, 1946,

an SS captain with ties to Eichmann is called to testify.

- [Anand] He had joined the Nazi's intelligence service

and ended up becoming one of Eichmann's men

in the so-called Jewish Affairs Division of the Gestapo.

- [Kevin] He claims that he pushed back against this plan

to kill millions of Jews, but Eichmann simply told him,

"You're being too sentimental about it."

[pensive music]

- [Laurence] The Nuremberg testimony

gives Eichmann worldwide notoriety,

but his whereabouts are still unknown.

Finding Eichmann won't be easy,

but after the revelations at Nuremberg, it's a priority.

The question is where could he be?

- [Kevin] There are millions of Germans packed into POW camps

all over Europe.

The Americans alone have 2 million in captivity,

but these camps are cramped, they're not well organized,

they don't have the names of everybody in them.

But the obvious place to look for Eichmann

is in POW camps around Europe.

[dramatic music]

[dramatic music]

- [Sami] Despite the fact that most of the world

has never heard the name Adolf Eichmann,

the US Counterintelligence Corps

has actually been compiling a dossier on him for months.

- [Paul] Investigators go and track down Eichmann's wife Vera.

They find her in Austria.

She claims that she hasn't seen her husband in months

and she doesn't even have a photograph of him.

- [Amory] It's clear that he was really planning ahead here.

He was making sure

that there were no pictures of him left over.

SS officers tell Allied officials

that Eichmann was still alive at the end of the war

and he probably still is.

They don't think that Eichmann would've taken his own life

the way that other Nazi officials did at this time.

- [Sami] With all of the chaos, and the disorganization,

and the disarray of these POW camps,

it becomes very, very likely

that Eichmann is using these POW camps to hide out.

The Allies also assume that he's using an alias.

The CIC distributes notices to their regional offices

and they call Eichmann,

quote, "of the highest importance among war criminals."

[dramatic music]

- [Laurence] As it turns out,

the Americans already have Eichmann in custody,

they just don't know it.

- [Kevin] At the end of the war,

Eichmann actually goes down into Austria to hide out.

And there are tons of Nazis all over the place

hiding from the Allies.

He meets with his wife and gives her instructions

on how to deal with Allied investigators,

which he knows are coming.

His plan is to head northwest through Germany

with his assistant, staying in homes of people

who are sympathetic to former Nazis.

- [Sami] A little later in May, however,

Eichmann and his assistant are picked up by a US Army patrol

and they're taken to a US POW camp in Weiden.

Eichmann gives a false name, a false identity

by the name of Adolf Barth.

- [Laurence] In the camp,

Eichmann plots how to keep from being discovered

and how to escape.

- [Paul] Eichmann is going to be identified sooner or later

because every SS officer like Eichmann

has a unique identifier

that's not common in the rest of the German Wehrmacht.

Every SS soldier has his blood type

tattooed inside his armpit.

And that means if you make all of the captives

take off their shirts and hold their hands up in the air,

you can quickly pick out the fanatical Nazis.

- [Anand] He tries to burn that tattoo with cigarettes,

but it doesn't work,

so he's not gonna be able to claim

he's not a member of the SS.

But there are plenty of SS men

who are POWs at the end of the war.

- [Kevin] So, what he tells the Allied officials

is that his name is actually Otto Eckmann

and that he's a lieutenant colonel in the SS.

[dramatic music]

- [Laurence] Eichmann makes the switch

thinking Eckmann is close enough to his real surname.

If an old acquaintance

were to suddenly blurt out his real name, Eichmann,

in the camp, it would be less likely to rouse suspicion.

- [Amory] Eichmann knows that he can't play this game forever.

He's gotten through a couple of interrogations undetected,

but he knows it's only a matter of time

before he's found out to be who he really is.

- [Sami] He finds some SS officers in the camp

who help him in his escape.

He's able to forge papers that pass him off

as a hunter in the area,

and the SS officers in the camp

also get him some civilian clothes.

And one night, Eichmann is able to climb

over a section of barbed wire fence

that isn't viewed by any camp guards

and he's able to make his escape into the surrounding woods.

And there he vanishes.

- [Amory] Authorities learned that an SS officer named

Otto Eckmann has escaped.

And so they interrogate all the other former SS officers

that are in the camp.

And those people confirm that Otto Eckmann

actually is Adolf Eichmann.

- [Paul] It really shows how disorganized

the situation in Europe is at the end of '45

and beginning of '46.

The Allies wind up realizing

that they'd been looking for Eichmann for months,

when in reality he was hiding right underneath their nose

inside one of their own compounds.

And so, it's a little embarrassing,

it's a little frustrating,

but it also means that they're pretty hot on his tail.

- In the wake of World War II,

the Nuremberg Military Tribunal declared the SS

a criminal organization,

citing its direct involvement in war atrocities.

The Allied powers would go on

to arrest hundreds of SS officials.

But as of 1946, one of the most notorious of these

is still missing, Adolf Eichmann.

- [Christina] It's not just Allied officials

who are searching for Eichmann.

We also have the Haganah, the Jewish intelligence services

that ultimately became the IDF

once the Israeli state was established.

- The Haganah tried to find Eichmann

by assembling this team of five operatives

that are gonna track his family.

They launched this much more elaborate investigation

than the Allied forces had.

[dramatic music]

- [Laurence] The team travels to Austria,

and after months of searching, locates the current homes

of Eichmann's wife and brother Otto.

- As the members of Haganah

start tracking Vera and her brother-in-law,

what they discover is the two of them

regularly take train trips out to the Austrian countryside,

basically between Linz and Salzburg.

They always travel separately but arrive at the same time,

and they then walk into the forest essentially

to a two-story house that's kind of camouflaged

from casual observation.

- [Kevin] The team investigates the house

and what they find is there's four men living in it

and they never come out.

But every night, an individual comes to the door

and brings them food.

The five-man team, from a distance,

sees one of these figures

that they think looks like Eichmann,

but they really can't tell.

They theorize that this is why Vera and his brother

are coming, and staying, and visiting for a while.

- [Laurence] Sensing they may have found their man,

the operatives stage a raid on the chalet.

- [Paul] One night, while the men are having dinner

inside this house, five members of Haganah approach.

Two of them kick in the door while the other ones pull guns

on the men inside this secluded home.

They single out the individual

that they think might be Adolf Eichmann

and they remove him from the house.

- [Sami] The operatives are shouting questions

at the man that they're convinced is Adolf Eichmann,

but the man is telling them,

"I'm not Adolf Eichmann.

My name is Wolfgang Bauer.

But after a bit of time,

Bauer reveals that he actually was an SS officer,

but he's still not the man that they're looking for.

- [Amory] He's not Eichmann, but he knows Eichmann.

He served with Eichmann.

And he was actually part of the Einsatzgruppen

that Eichmann oversaw.

This was this mobile death squad that came in

and exterminated Jews, usually by shooting them.

They killed millions of people.

[dramatic music]

- [Laurence] Still convinced the man is Eichmann himself,

the operatives drag him out into a waiting car

and drive him deeper into the woods.

- [Kevin] They say, "If you're not Eichmann,

why are Eichmann's wife and brother

continually visiting you?"

And his only answer is that they were friends

with the owner of the chalet where they were staying.

- [Sami] They continue peppering him with questions.

One of the operatives is pointing a gun

directly at his chest,

and Bauer basically just laughs at the operatives

and he tells them, "All you can do is kill me."

So, that's what the operatives do.

They pump bullets into his chest,

and they bury him in a shallow grave,

and then later the Haganah go back to their superiors

and they tell them

that they have successfully killed Adolf Eichmann.

[dramatic music]

- [Paul] Nobody's quite sure

what to think about the Eichmann situation.

There are some that are convinced

that Haganah had gotten the wrong man,

that in fact the individual they shot

really was Wolfgang Bauer and he was telling the truth.

He wasn't Eichmann.

- [Sami] Others, on the other hand, are convinced

that Adolf Eichmann is killed by the Haganah

and it's officially over, case closed.

As for the Allied forces,

they're not as worried anymore

about looking for Nazi war criminals

considering that by 1947,

the Allied forces are dealing with, in their minds,

a much bigger deal, which is the burgeoning Cold War.

- [Laurence] One man still in pursuit

is an Austrian holocaust survivor named Simon Wiesenthal,

who's dedicated his life to hunting down Nazi war criminals.

- [Paul] Wiesenthal becomes convinced

that the Haganah victim was not Eichmann,

that this individual was someone else

who might have been connected to him.

In fact, Wiesenthal is fairly frustrated

that they shot the individual

rather than bringing him in for deeper interrogation

because he might have been able to offer some clues

as to Eichmann's actual whereabouts.

But he has to work with the materials

that are available to him.

So, he begins at the beginning

and he starts looking at the individuals

that were closest to Eichmann.

- [Laurence] Working with other investigators,

Wiesenthal is able to source a photo of Eichmann,

finally putting a face to the notorious Nazi criminal.

- [Amory] In December of 1947, Wiesenthal is called to Austria,

to the US CIC headquarters, for an urgent meeting.

He's told there that Eichmann's wife Vera

has just put in an application

to have her husband legally declared dead.

Now she says she does this

in the interest of their children.

But if he is in fact declared dead,

the warrants that are out on Eichmann will disappear.

The search for him will officially be over.

- [Christina] And the proof of the death is that there is a

report coming from a government officer

in Czechoslovakia named Lucas

that he witnessed Eichmann being killed

by a Soviet firing squad at the end of World War II.

[dramatic music]

[dramatic music]

- [Sami] Paul Lucas swears in an affidavit that Eichmann,

along with other Nazis, were apprehended by the Red Army.

They were lined up shoulder to shoulder

and executed on April 30th, 1945

by members of the Soviet Army.

- [Amory] Wiesenthal is not buying it.

He has interviewed people in the POW camps

who said that they saw Eichmann after April of 1945.

And he starts thinking

Vera has probably submitted this application

as an attempt to end the hunt for her husband.

- [Paul] Wiesenthal petitions the court

to essentially postpone the decision

about whether Eichmann was alive or dead.

Wiesenthal thinks that given a little bit of time,

he can actually prove that Eichmann is still alive.

- [Kevin] He sends investigators to Prague

to both find out more evidence on Eichmann

and also to basically check the background on Lucas.

So, this investigation is three years

after this alleged shooting,

so there's really no evidence to be found there.

But what Wiesenthal's researchers do find,

that's rather fascinating,

is that Lucas is married to Vera's sister.

[dramatic music]

- [Paul] When Wiesenthal approaches the judge and points

out that the star witness suggesting that Eichmann

was dead is actually married to his wife's sister,

the judge is mortified because that's something

that the witness should have revealed

at the very beginning of the discussion.

Ultimately, the judge throws the case out.

He can't rule Eichmann dead

on the basis of individuals testifying

who had a vested interest in an outcome.

- [Sami] So, to Wiesenthal,

this pretty much confirms his suspicions.

Eichmann is still alive and doing whatever he can

to elude the long arm of justice.

So, Eichmann could presumably be anywhere.

- [Laurence] By 1950, with the Cold War heating up,

the Allied powers are less focused

on hunting Nazi war criminals.

But it remains risky for Nazi fugitives,

even those with fake identities,

to pass through border checkpoints and escape Europe.

Nazi hunters like Simon Wiesenthal

have no idea if Eichmann is still in Germany

or could have escaped thousands of miles away.

[pensive music]

- [Paul] In a major surprise to Western powers,

some of the former Nazis

are actually gaining assistance escaping Europe

thanks to the Catholic church.

The Catholic Church sees the Nazis as one of the great ways

to fight against the evils of communism.

- [Sami] There are still plenty of fascist sympathizers

after World War II,

and they start creating these secret routes via safe houses

that are called ratlines as a way to help Nazis

escape to safer areas.

And the Catholic church plays a role in this

because some of these ratlines, some of these safe houses,

are monasteries that exist in places like Germany,

Austria, Switzerland, Spain, and Italy.

- [Katherine] You have a number of cardinals

and a number of upper level Catholic administrators

who are sympathetic to the Nazis,

not because of their anti-Jewish stance,

but because they saw them as an ally

in the fight against communism,

which they saw as much worse than even Nazism.

- [Kevin] Italy is vital to all this because in Rome,

there's a Catholic bishop named Alois Hudal

who was very pro-Nazi,

and he's got the ability to make the fake papers

to get these former Nazis out of Europe.

- [Amory] These papers are accepted by the Red Cross,

no questions asked.

The Red Cross is really overseeing the flow of refugees.

And so these former Nazis and SS officers

are basically able to just blend in with other refugees

and being able to get out the country.

[pensive music]

- [Laurence] By the early 1950s,

investigators believe it's possible Eichmann

has taken advantage of the ratlines.

- [Katherine] About 90% of these Nazis escaped Europe

through Italy or Spain,

and they were on their way, most of them, to South America.

Argentina is a safe haven for these Germans.

- [Amory] President Juan Perón was a close ally of Hitler's

during the war.

So, Hudal knew exactly who he was helping here.

He writes to Perón actually in 1948

and asks for 5,000 visas to help Nazis escape.

So, Argentina seems like a good place

to try to start looking for Eichmann.

[dramatic music]

[pensive music]

- [Sami] There are rumors that start to circulate

that by the 1950s, Eichmann has fled to Argentina

and has started a life there.

Now, for the most part,

the newly formed West German government

largely ignores a lot of these rumors,

but there's one prosecutor

that just will not let this information go.

He's a German Jewish prosecutor by the name of Fritz Bauer.

[dramatic music]

- [Paul] He and his family had fled from German persecution

early on in the Third Reich,

so he escaped some of the worst evils of the Holocaust.

But when he returns to Germany in the post-war era,

he's determined to set some of the wrongs right.

Bauer can't be too open with what he's up to

because he doesn't know who in the German hierarchy

might be sympathetic to those individuals

and might tip them off

to the possibility of their discovery.

- [Laurence] In September, 1957,

Bauer receives a letter from Lothar Hermann,

a blind attorney living in Argentina.

- [Kevin] Hermann is one of the German expats

living in Argentina.

He's Jewish and part of a rather large Jewish population.

Even though Perón is really anti-Semitic,

there's a population of about 400,000 Jews

living in Argentina.

- [Sami] Hermann is a survivor

of one of the most notorious concentration camps

of World War II, Dachau.

In fact, he endured such vicious beatings

during his time at the camp

that he actually lost his eyesight.

- [Amory] He immigrates to Argentina in 1938

with his wife and his daughter.

In 1956, he's living in a suburb of Buenos Aires

with his family.

And his daughter Silvia is dating

this young German expat named Nick.

- [Kevin] So, one night, while having dinner

over at the Hermann's house,

young Nick says that his dad

was a high official in the Wehrmacht, the German army.

Nick has no idea that he's talking to a Jewish family.

The Hermanns do not publicize the fact that they're Jewish.

So, he just keeps talking and talking and eventually says,

"It's a shame the Nazis were never able

to complete their mission of extermination."

- [Katherine] The Hermann family just sits quietly.

The father doesn't say anything.

He's used to hearing anti-Semitic comments.

He knows that this is just how it goes sometimes.

He's disappointed that his daughter is

dating him, I'm sure, but he just lets it go.

A few months later, the Hermann family

move a couple of hundred miles away to another town

and the boyfriend is forgotten.

- [Sami] One day, in April of 1957,

Silvia is reading an article in the newspaper for her father

about Nazi war criminals

and she mentions the name Adolf Eichmann.

And she says her boyfriend Nick

said that his last name is Eichmann.

- [Laurence] Lothar Hermann instantly remembers

the boy's hateful comments at the dinner table.

- [Kevin] Silvia is still in touch with Nick,

but he's never given her his home address.

He gives her a different address to write to, to get to him.

And oddly enough, while Silvia and Nick were dating,

he never invited her over to his house.

So, Lothar immediately suspects

that this might be Adolf Eichmann's son.

- [Amory] They want to tell the German authorities

or the Argentinian authorities,

but they really can't 'cause Nazi sympathizers

are everywhere at this point.

So, instead, they write a letter

to the prosecutors in Frankfurt, West Germany.

And that's the letter that makes its way to Fritz Bauer.

So, Bauer's intrigued.

He knows that Eichmann's son is named Klaus,

but in German, Klaus is actually short for Nicholas.

So, this seems promising, but he needs more information,

such as an address.

- [Sami] Lothar and Silvia take a 10-hour train ride

from their home back to the suburb of Olivos.

And they pretty much spend the day

just walking around the town

until Silvia runs into a mutual friend of hers and Nick's

that tells her where Nick's house is.

So, he gives her the address.

- In 1957, teenager Silvia Hermann

and her father Lothar are convinced

Cynthia's old boyfriend is the son of Nazi war criminal

Adolf Eichmann.

They've tracked him to the Olivo suburb of Buenos Aires

but need to confirm his identity

before passing it along to the authorities.

[dramatic music]

- [Amory] Silvia goes to the house.

The door is answered by a woman who reluctantly lets her in.

There is a middle-aged man in glasses.

And she thinks that he looks like the guy in the picture

that Fritz Bauer had sent to her of Adolf Eichmann,

but she's not totally sure.

So, she asks him.

She says, "Are you Mr. Eichmann?

Are you Nick's father?"

And he sort of tersely responds, "No, I'm his uncle."

So, she sits down and just strikes up

a pleasant conversation with him.

[dramatic music]

- [Katherine] Nick comes home shortly thereafter

and sees Silvia.

He says, "What are you doing here?"

"Oh, I just stopped to say hi.

I have to go, I have to go."

The middle aged man wearing glasses,

who has claimed to be the uncle,

stands up to walk her to the door, and Nick says,

"No, father, I can walk her to the door myself."

[dramatic music]

- [Sami] So, it would seem that the Hermanns

have stumbled on something pretty suspicious.

The fact that it took all this time

to figure out Nick's address,

why was he being so cagey about where he lives,

and then when Silvia arrives to the house,

the woman that answers the door reluctantly lets her in,

the man claims to be Nick's uncle,

but then Nick refers to him as father,

something just is not adding up in this situation.

[pensive music]

- [Paul] Although Fritz Bauer is intrigued, he's got a problem.

He can't really rely on German or Argentinian authorities

to follow up on this information.

There's just too many Nazi sympathizers

within both of those populations.

So, instead, he turns

to the new Israeli intelligence service, the Mossad.

- [Katherine] The Mossad go to the house

the Hermanns had told them about.

But when they get there,

they don't think it's the right address.

It is ramshackle, it's worn out,

and they just can't believe that an SS officer

of the rank and fortune of Eichmann would be living there.

As they watched the house,

they just don't see anybody coming and going

that matches Eichmann's description.

So, they're pretty certain

this is a case of mistaken identity.

- [Amory] The Mossad let the tip go.

The Hermanns, though, they don't wanna let this go.

So, in April of 1958, they're going through public records

and they find out that the home

is owned by a guy named Francisco Schmidt.

And they think that this is just the latest alias

of Adolf Eichmann.

And so they go back to the Mossad and they say,

"Look into Francisco Schmidt."

And they do.

And they say, "There's no way that Francisco Schmidt

is actually Adolf Eichmann."

So, at this point, they pause their contact with the Hermanns

because they just think

that they're full of unreliable information.

- [Kevin] A year later, in August of 1959,

an independent Nazi investigator, Tuviah Friedman,

says that he's been in contact

with some high government officials in Germany

and they've told him that Eichmann is not in Argentina,

he's in Kuwait.

[dramatic music]

[pensive music]

- [Amory] Now, Kuwait at this time

is this sort of obscure British territory.

There's only about 300,000 people living there.

North Africa and the Middle East

are actually very popular destinations for ex-Nazis.

- [Sami] Friedman immediately contacts

the Israeli Defense Ministry

and he says that Eichmann is in Kuwait.

You should send some agents over there to go pick him up.

But the ministry pretty much ignores Friedman entirely.

- [Kevin] Israel is a brand new country

and has a long list of security priorities.

And Friedman realizes that Eichmann

is not really the top of the list

or maybe even the middle of it.

But he's not gonna give up.

So, Friedman contacts an Israeli newspapermen and says,

"Have I got a scoop for you.

Adolf Eichmann, the former Nazi, is living in Kuwait."

[pensive music]

- [Paul] Friedman suddenly becomes an international

celebrity, and he uses his fame to draw attention

to the fact that Eichmann has not been located.

- [Kevin] Other Nazi hunters are not happy.

They believe it's gonna do nothing

but drive Eichmann either underground or out of Kuwait.

- [Laurence] No solid evidence of Eichmann

turns up in Kuwait

and the trail once again seems to run cold.

- [Sami] Nevertheless, Friedman is pleased with what he did

because now he's put Adolf Eichmann's name

in newspapers all over the world.

And this becomes a way

to potentially inspire not only Nazi hunters

but actual governments to locate this Nazi war criminal

and bring him to justice.

- [Laurence] In late 1959,

there's a rash of anti-Semitic activity

throughout West Germany.

Reportedly, swastikas are painted

on nearly 700 Jewish sites across the country,

along with graffiti reading, Jews out.

It's a painful time, but the attacks

do help galvanize all the parties

that are or should be hunting down Nazi war criminals.

- [Christina] It is important to acknowledge

that there were still Nazi sympathies.

Even though they had been defeated in World War II,

that didn't mean

that pro-Nazi sentiment completely disappeared.

This can explain why it took West Germany so long

to take the hunt for Eichmann seriously.

- Up to this point, there has been a lot of foot dragging.

West German intelligence has been sitting

on a lot of evidence that Adolf Eichmann

is alive in Argentina and living under an assumed name.

[pensive music]

- [Laurence] After years of pursuing Eichmann,

West German prosecutor Fritz Bauer receives new intel

pointing him to Eichmann's alleged alias.

- [Amory] Bauer gets a tip from a man named Gerhard Klammer.

And Klammer used to work for a construction company

in Northern Argentina with a guy named Ricardo Klement.

He's never forgotten the man's face.

And he's seen it in news coverage

as the years have gone by.

And he is thoroughly convinced that Ricardo Klement

is actually Adolf Eichmann.

- [Katherine] Now, he was German, but he wasn't a Nazi.

He was anti-Nazi, as so many Germans were.

And so he spends the 1950s trying multiple times

to notify the German government

that Ricardo Klement is there in Argentina

and that he is Adolf Eichmann.

[dramatic music]

- [Paul] In an amazing coincidence, Klammer is in

Buenos Aires and he sees a man get off the bus

that he recognizes as his old coworker Ricardo Klement.

He follows the man and writes down the address

where the man goes home.

Finally, in December of 1959,

we might have definitive evidence

of where Adolf Eichmann is hiding.

- [Sami] Klammer's findings make their way to Fritz Bauer.

And this is when Bauer starts to slowly put together

the pieces of this puzzle.

He knows the name Ricardo Klement

because that information was provided to him

by the Hermanns when Silvia found that name registered

on the electric meter of the house that he's living in.

On top of that, Klammer also has a photograph of him

and Ricardo Klement standing together.

And when Bauer takes this photograph

and puts it by the photo that they have of Adolf Eichmann,

the resemblance is incredibly striking.

- [Laurence] A few months later,

Bauer reaches out to the Mossad.

He knows where Eichmann is hiding.

He just hopes it's not too late.

- [Paul] The Mossad recognizes that they might have made a

mistake about whether or not Eichmann

is still alive and well in Argentina.

In March of 1960, a new Mossad agent is sent to Argentina,

and he starts to investigate.

- The agent who is assigned this case is Zvi Aharoni.

He was known as being very methodical, very unflappable.

He could do just about any job that needed to be done.

While he and his mother had escaped the Holocaust

and gotten to Palestine by 1938,

the entire rest of his family was killed.

So, the idea that he could capture Eichmann was personal.

- [Amory] Zvi goes to the neighborhood and checks out the

house in Buenos Aires, only to find that Ricardo Klement

has just recently moved out.

There's a team of painters painting the house.

So, Zvi finds an ally in this young Argentinian kid

in the neighborhood who goes up to the painters

and is trying to get the address

of where Ricardo Klement moved.

- [Paul] He claims to be determined to deliver a package

to the family that had previously inhabited the home.

And it turns out one of the workers

is actually friends with one of the Klement family sons.

And after a little more discussion,

he's persuaded to provide the new address

where the Klement family resides.

- [Amory] This new property was purchased by Eichmann's wife

using her maiden name.

And they've moved to San Fernando,

which is just outside of Buenos Aires.

The address is 14 Garibaldi Street.

- [Sami] Using caution, Aharoni surveils the address.

And during his surveillance, he notices a middle-aged man

that bears a pretty striking resemblance to Adolf Eichmann.

And with this information, Aharoni contacts the Mossad

and tells them, quote, "The driver is black."

This is a code that basically tells the Mossad

that Eichmann has been found.

- [Laurence] In the spring of 1960,

the war criminal investigation that began

with a hunch from a blind attorney and

his teenage daughter reaches the desk of Israeli Prime Minister

David Ben-Guiron.

- [Kevin] With this information,

the prime minister of Israel, Ben-Gurion,

decides to send an 11-man team of Mossad agents

to Buenos Aires to capture Eichmann

and bring him back to Israel.

It's called Operation Finale.

- [Sami] The Mossad agents run surveillance

on Eichmann for two months.

And they track all of his movements

because the better they know where he goes,

where he stops, what he does during the day,

it'll be much easier to figure out

when's the best time to strike.

And they figure out he gets off the same bus

every single day and makes this short walk to his house.

And that's when they'll strike.

- [Laurence] On the evening of May 11th, 1960,

the operation unfolds like a scene from a spy novel.

- Adolf Eichmann has become very set in his daily patterns.

Every day, he climbs off of a city bus at 7:40 PM

and he follows the same path to his house

just 110 yards away.

- [Laurence] But on this night,

7:40 Passes and Eichmann's bus has yet to arrive.

- Mossad operators are waiting for him near the bus stop.

They have a limousine full of agents.

They even have a couple of guys outside of the car

who are sort of pretending to work under the hood.

There's another guy in a backup car behind them.

7:40 comes and goes, the bus doesn't come.

So, now they're confused.

This is not how they were expecting things to go down.

It's getting later and later.

And they realize, really, the longer that they sit there,

the more likely it is

that they're gonna get noticed by someone.

[pensive music]

- [Kevin] So, finally, a bus arrives.

The agent's blood pressure rises

as they know that this is the moment,

but the bus doesn't stop.

It just whizzes by.

- [Sami] The Mossad agent's probably starting

to get a little bit nervous.

What if somebody tipped off Eichmann?

So, we should abort for tonight.

Maybe we'll try again later

with the hopes that this operation will work.

But then, five minutes later, at 8:05 PM,

another bus pulls up to the bus stop.

- [Laurence] 25 minutes late,

their suspect steps off the bus.

- He starts making the walk to his street.

They're gonna let him get to his street.

And it's there that an agent named Peter Malkin

goes up to him and says, "Un momentito Señor?"

And he must know something's up

because he takes off running.

Malkin has to go and and really tackle him to the ground.

After a struggle, they drag him into the limousine.

- [Kevin] And while they're in the car, he's strangely silent.

And then suddenly, in perfect German, he says to them,

"I am resigned to my fate."

Now, before this, the Mossad agents were 99% sure

this was Eichmann.

After he says this,

they know a hundred percent they've got their man.

[dramatic music]

- [Sami] For nine tense days, the Mossad agents

keep Eichmann sequestered in a safe house

while trying to figure out the details of his extraction.

Because you have to understand,

these Mossad agents are in a sovereign nation.

They have just apprehended a citizen of that nation.

And now they're going to try

to extradite this person out of the country

without the Argentinian government knowing.

So, they have to be very, very careful

about every step that they take

because if something goes wrong,

Eichmann could be allowed to stay in Argentina

and not be extradited back to Israel.

[pensive music]

- [Katherine] What they end up doing could

be a part of a movie.

They drug him, put him in a flight crew uniform,

and take him to the airport.

They drag him along as if he's just some drunk pilot

that they're gonna put on the plane.

They're very nonchalant, laughing about this.

Here's this drunk pilot, no big deal.

This isn't Adolf Eichmann, the architect of the Holocaust.

This isn't a prisoner who we've drugged.

This is just some drunk flight crew member

who we're gonna take home before he gets in trouble.

They finally get to Israel.

Eichmann is caught.

He knows that he is, and he's resigned to his fate.

- [Laurence] Now, at long last,

one of the primary engineers of the Holocaust

will stand trial for his crimes.

- [Paul] Eichmann's trial commences in 1961.

And his defense essentially suggests

that he's a low ranking bureaucrat

who was merely following orders and doing his job.

However, as the trial develops, the evidence makes it clear

that Eichmann was absolutely central

to the propagation of the Holocaust.

- [Sami] Eichmann is ultimately found guilty

of war crimes against humanity, is sentenced to death,

and is hanged for his crimes on June 1st, 1962.

[dramatic music]

- Government authorities eventually took down Eichmann,

but the details of his capture remind us of the role

played by ordinary people.

The Hermanns, a blind lawyer,

and his teenage daughter with no training

were the first to truly expose

Eichmann's new life in Argentina,

and they never gave up seeking justice.

I'm Laurence Fishburne.

Thank you for watching this case closed episode

of "History's Greatest Mysteries."