All language subtitles for Historys.Greatest.Mysteries.S07E02.1080p.WEB.h264-EDITH_track3_[eng]

- [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."