Original subtitles

I didn't care about the Jews that I deported to Auschwitz.

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

Jews unfit to work

are to be submitted to the Final Solution. Period.

Where is it?

All rise!

Adolf Eichmann.

The extended arm of Hitler's evil regime.

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

Regarding Life Magazine and its publication

that we showed the defendant during the interrogation,

he did not deny

that this publication relied on material that came from him.

You were given the Life article for your review.

You said, when you saw the Einsatzgruppen in action:

"Our people will turn into sadists,

we must find a different method of execution." True?

The last part, that we must find a different method for executions,

this seems foreign to me. I'm hearing it for the first time.

Well, you said that if extermination must be physical,

let it be physical, but not by gunfire.

To prevent a Jewish baby's brain

from splattering on your leather coat as it did in Minsk.

Right?

No! This is a totally wrong interpretation of my words.

I did not express them like this.

The meaning was that you cannot go

and kill people. I explained this clearly.

In principle, it doesn't matter if you use gas or bullets.

But you are stating here: "Now, as the Führer ordered a physical solution,

it must be a physical solution." Physical solution!

-Did I sign that? I don't think so. -You didn't make any comment on that!

Obviously, it must have slipped my sight.

Otherwise, I would have certainly corrected it.

I myself looked into the Führer's dietary cook

in terms of her origins,

and I concluded that in the context of the Nuremberg Laws

she is to be addressed as a 1/32 Jewess.

Who?

Eva Braun,

the "dietary cook" of the Führer!

I say that with air quotation marks.

In reality, she was the Führer's bride.

The bride of the Führer of the Greater German Reich.

The Jewish population acquired

such an exaggeratedly high share of the economic assets

compared to their proportion

of the population

that here, how should I say…

the Jew had understood to violently grab everything with brutality

and leave others hungry.

You've always been a devoted antisemite, right?

I've never been an antisemite, but a nationalist.

And there's a written as well as an oral record of that.

I've never been an antisemite.

The things you said in Sassen's conversations

indicate severe antisemitism, don't they?

I said it is difficult for me to remember if I said such things.

What does Dr. Servatius say at this point?

He just always confirmed that there was a recorded conversation,

but he never said that what is written down is the content from that recording.

The prosecutor submitted the defendant's comments to us

in response to the article that appeared in Life Magazine.

Yes.

His primary claim

is that "Life" published only a summary of his remarks

and therefore, the meaning in the full source may be different.

Did the prosecution procure the original?

No, we don't have the original.

Based on our information,

it was recorded and submitted to a journalist in Argentina,

a Dutch Nazi, we are told,

but we don't have the original tapes.

So you can't get the full transcript from "Life"?

If the court so wishes, the prosecution will try to do so

and contact Life Magazine.

Our experience, typically,

in newspaper inquiries to request the sources of their information

is not encouraging and hopeful.

We must, and we will look into the future with full confidence.

Because also the West woke up to the threat from the East.

While Eichmann was standing trial in Jerusalem,

many of his accomplices are still free

and hold senior positions in West Germany.

When I stand before you here,

Judges of Israel,

to lead the prosecution of Adolf Eichmann,

I do not stand alone.

Standing here with me, at this time,

are six million accusers.

But they will not be able to point the finger of blame at the glass cell,

because their ashes are piled up among the hills of Auschwitz,

in the fields of Treblinka.

The fracture of the people of Israel in this generation

was discussed in a few of the trials

that were held after Nazi Germany was defeated

in World War II.

There was a big room

in which Eichmann sat.

-You instantly saw him. -Yes, of course.

This was a man with the temperament of a ruler over life and death,

rude, crude.

When we entered,

he didn't let us approach his desk.

We had to stand the whole time.

Can you confirm that what you did in Austria was actually

forcing the Jews into deportation?

You boast about having organized the Jewish emigration

according to the assembly line method.

I did not force any Jew to emigrate.

On the contrary, Dr. Löwenherz came to me--

I'm asking for an answer.

I had demanded from Löwenherz to present me with

at least 1,200 to 1,400 Jews per day at the time.

It was a coming and going, the whole day.

If I tell you that for multiple weeks

every day we had 1,000 Jews ready for departure.

They recognized my department

as a treasure chest

where everything

in regards to Jewish life in Austria

could be found.

You controlled the lives of the Jews in the Reich.

No, that is not correct. That is not correct.

It is more clear,

after we heard about that period from Dr. Löwenherz

and the other testimonies.

So everyone is lying besides you who is telling the truth?

No, the documents tell the truth. And they confirm what I just said.

If you want to call black white and white black,

I can't do anything about it.

Gentlemen, I hope you enjoyed your meal.

We now proceed to the main question in regards to the "Final Solution,"

namely determining which group of people will be considered for evacuation.

Do you know

if several years before the war

there had already been a plan meticulously detailed by Heydrich

down to the smallest detail,

for the so-called solution of the "Jewish Question?"

No, I would have had to know about that.

After we started marching,

the moment dictated these things.

But was Heydrich not mandated at the Wannsee Conference

with the solution of the Jewish question?

In fact he was authorized to…

to initiate, to take over the final solution to the Jewish question.

He was empowered to do so.

Heydrich wanted to get the certification to deal with Jewish affairs as he wished.

He received it at the Wannsee Conference.

You were his qualified referent

for all matters arising from the "Final Solution."

That is not true.

I was simply tasked with the administrative process

of invitations for these people to

the conference in March '42.

The Führer has given the order for physical extermination…

I had heard these words for the first time.

I know that all too well.

I even thought to myself, "physical extermination…"

You see, the word in itself is already rather peculiar.

If it had been, "The Führer has ordered the extermination of the Jews…"

But like that? "Physical extermination…"

It seemed incredible to me.

You saw in the Jews an enemy that had to be exterminated,

like any other enemy.

The slogan was: "The enemy must be exterminated."

The word "extermination" is not appropriate

because you don't exterminate an enemy,

you need to fight the enemy.

But not a physical extermination, like the one Hitler commanded.

Do you know of a non-physical extermination?

You need to know that,

if someone is already in a concentration camp

it is rather easy to get in, but extremely difficult to get out again.

Very difficult.

It's more elegant to kill with gas.

Isn't that what the people from the Eastern Ministry said?

Yes, but that definitely wasn't my opinion.

That should be clear from what was said before.

I don't know who introduced the physical extermination.

A brigadier general,

he reported to me

that they installed sprinklers that looked like shower heads.

This would be a shower room.

And they would put in the idiots and throw in cyanide.

I must inform the court

that efforts were made to procure the transcript.

And we have it.

Not from Life Magazine.

Is it a copy or…?

It's a transcription. It's not brief.

It's several hundreds of pages.

We do not have the tape, but…

there are also remarks by Eichmann

in his handwriting.

What he called

"side notes."

In July 1945, I obtained from the Jewish Agency

a wanted notice against Adolf Eichmann

that proved that he was the main culprit for the mass murder of the Jews of Europe.

After reading this notice and other documents,

Eichmann was also, in my eyes, the murderer of my family.

Mr. Hausner, when did the prosecution obtain this document?

Approximately…

It's hard to say…

it's hard to say.

-It's hard-- -Because the question is

what Your Honor calls the prosecution.

If Your Honor is asking me when I obtained it?

Yes.

It arrived only three weeks ago.

But it arrived in Israel beforehand.

Please don't pressure me with questions.

They came from Lida - the Germans.

I turned my head, he asked me whom to shoot first.