All language subtitles for The Lost Eichmann Tapes.s01e02.Dealing with the Devil

This programme contains scenes which
some viewers may find disturbing

TRANSLATION:

Adolf Eichmann evades capture
by the Allies for 15 years,

fleeing to Argentina,
where he records

an extensive interview with
Nazi journalist Willem Sassen,

admitting to his role
in the Holocaust.

Following Eichmann's
capture in 1960,

Sassen hides the tapes before
taking advantage of the media frenzy

to sell excerpts of Eichmann's
interview to Life Magazine.

Despite the article's
damning revelations

just before the trial,

Eichmann remains resolute
in his denial.

Gideon Hausner,
Israel's Attorney General,

is determined to find
Sassen's taped interview

to prove Eichmann is the architect

of the Final Solution
to the Jewish Question.

Nazis have always denied
their role in the Holocaust.

One of the last Nazi fugitives
to arrive in Argentina,

Eichmann records a detailed
series of interviews

that runs to 67 reels of tape.

After years of
mysterious disappearance,

the tapes are rediscovered.

Securing full access to the
recordings for the first time,

The Devil's Confession reveals
Eichmann detailing his crimes.

The story of the Holocaust is,
in fact,

the story of Eichmann's career.

After establishing methods
to identify the Jews,

he is promoted and sent to Austria,

which was annexed
by the German Reich,

and empowered with the task of
ridding the country of Jews.

Eichmann arrives in Austria
and, immediately,

he is establishing his old idea

of creating a central
immigration bureau for the Jews.

He took over the Rothschild Palais,
a famous place for Jews.

There, he creates a pattern,
how to get rid of the Jews

and to force them to leave
at least some of their property

to the Third Reich,

meaning an official robbery,
plus deportation.

One of those Jews came to the trial,
and testified at the trial

that you walked into
the Rothschild Palais

with a business, with a home,

with bank accounts,
with possessions.

And as you went from desk to desk,
you gave up these things

and you came out at the end
with permission to leave Austria.

The German hierarchy was
so impressed by Eichmann's...

..the way Eichmann handled this
that this sort of skyrocketed him

into this organisational task.

Within six months,
after his arrival to Austria,

Eichmann succeeds to expel
more Jews from Austria

than Germany has succeeded
in all the five years

since Hitler's rise to power.

This really caught
the eyes of the Fuhrer,

and soon enough,
in November of 1938,

the Kristallnacht happened.

In January, Hitler will set up

a central authority for
Jewish immigration in Germany.

Eichmann was
one of the key characters

leading to the Final Solution
as we know it.

Perhaps the most damning part
of Eichmann's legacy

is his participation in
the Wannsee Conference,

where the plan for the vicious
extermination of all Jews in Europe

is meticulously laid out.

The conference is led by
Eichmann's commander,

Reinhard Heydrich, head of
the Reich Security Main Office.

We know that the men were invited
here to have the talk

on the Final Solution
of the Jewish Question,

as they put it in the invitation,

accompanied by breakfast.

Heil Hitler.

They had food, they had alcohol.

Eichmann refers to cognac.

It is a big operation.

Millions of Jews have to be
transported to the place of death.

How do you organise it?

And here is the man who knows how
to do it professionally.

Eichmann is something
of a logistical mastermind,

and he wants to make sure
that he's highly successful

in the deportations,
and he does this with full awareness

that the result of
deporting these Jewish persons

to these killing centres
is that they're going to be killed.

There is a word that is
used in this document,

and that is the word of "behandelt",
"the treatment".

They would be suitably treated.

At that point of time,
for most of the perpetrators,

to my knowledge,
it's clearly understood as killing.

Eichmann writes
the protocol of the conference

and sends it to
the relevant offices.

Then he carries out the decisions
of the conference,

being sure that this is

what the angel of history
has asked him to do.

Adolf Eichmann visited
Auschwitz many times.

He went there to inspect

and to be sure that his instructions
are being carried out.

He even had some
improvement suggestions!

We know this from
the camp commander, Rudolf Hoss,

who welcomed him there each time.

If Hausner had had access
to the tapes,

that he could have played
the tapes in the trial,

then the next question
he would have asked Eichmann was,

"Were you lying then
or are you lying now?"

On the tapes, Eichmann clearly
admits to the deceptive techniques

used by the Nazis
to make the gas chambers

appear like innocent shower rooms.

Without access to the tapes,
Hausner finds another way,

and drops a bombshell
on the defence...

..shocking everyone
in the courtroom

by introducing copies of
the original transcripts

that Sassen has made
of his interviews with Eichmann.

The transcripts of the tapes
become available,

and not just the transcripts,

but the transcripts with
corrections,

in Eichmann's handwriting.

Because Sassen had
transcribed the tapes,

gave them to Eichmann and said,

"Go over them and see
if there's anything wrong."

And you have your corrections,
in his handwriting.

So this was first-hand evidence.

One of these copies
reaches Gideon Hausner,

who never reveals how he obtained

the transcripts of
the Sassen recordings.

But we do know that Nazi hunter
Simon Wiesenthal is in touch

with Hausner during the trial,

and may have assisted
in procuring the evidence.

Wiesenthal reveals
that the transcripts

reach the Eichmann family in Linz.

You had Eichmann's
handwritten notes.

You had 80-something pages, right,

so it was obviously
that these were real.

We didn't need tapes to justify
that they were real.

Eichmann denies that the
transcripts are his words,

challenging Hausner to produce
the original recordings.

Hausner must convince the court
of the validity of the transcripts

before they can be
admitted into evidence.

It is in Hungary
where Eichmann commits

perhaps his most heinous crime -

the mass murder of Hungarian Jews
towards the end of the war,

which he details
in the Sassen transcripts.

Eichmann comes in and he organises

the deportation of Hungarian Jews.

He gets Hungarian railways,
the Hungarian militia,

the Hungarian police.

Over 400,000 Jews are deported
in the space of seven weeks,

most of whom -
murdered in Auschwitz.

It's that killing that
gives Auschwitz

its dubious distinction as
the world's greatest killing field.

My own mother arrived in Auschwitz
in September of 1944.

She didn't know - what is that
place?

Where did she arrive to?

We have an album,
the Auschwitz album,

which has pictures of one of
the transports from Hungary.

You see people very well-dressed,

standing in a very idyllic forest,
like on a lovely Sunday picnic.

They are standing in circles,
they are sitting on the ground.

Some of them are laughing.

The gap between
what you see in the pictures

and what you know that will happen
in the next half an hour,

it is a completely
classical illustration

of the way Eichmann
cheated his victims to believe

that no harm will happen to them.

To prove that Eichmann
played a key role in Hungary,

Hausner calls witnesses to testify

that knew Eichmann during that time.

VOICE BREAKS

MAN SHOUTS:

SHOUTING CONTINUES

The voice in the courtroom
is not alone

in accusing
the Hungarian community leaders

of abandoning their people
to collaborate with the Nazis,

and Eichmann in particular.

On the tapes, Eichmann mentions
various Jewish leaders.

Among them is Israel Kasztner,
a Hungarian community leader

and representative of
the Zionist movement

that will become
the Israeli government.

The story of Kasztner
and the accusations against him,

both during and after the war,

are so controversial that
the mention of his name is

probably something Ben-Gurion
and his government

would prefer to keep out
of the Eichmann trial.

Kasztner arranged for a train

of around 1,600 prominent
Hungarian Jews,

including members of his own family,

to basically go to Switzerland,

and one of the questions
that arose was whether

Kasztner was
a collaborator with the devil.

The devil in question is Eichmann.

After the war, Kasztner is accused
by many Jewish survivors

of collaborating with the Nazis

to keep the nature of
the deportations a secret,

in exchange for the freedom
of those he managed to save.

There are Jews in Hungary,
survivors, to this day,

and certainly their offspring,

who feel that Kasztner
could have warned them and didn't.

Kasztner insists that he did warn,
he did tell in the underground,

and that he did save more Jews
than anybody else,

saved more Jews than Schindler.

And this had become a cause celebre

in the first years of
the state of Israel,

because it raised the question of
dealing with the devil.

JUDGE: We haven't yet heard,

have we, what happened to
these Jews from Hungary?

Later, at the Nuremberg trials,

Kasztner testifies
on behalf of accused Nazis.

When asked why he would
do such a thing,

Kasztner astonishes everyone by
admitting that he'd done so

at the request of the provisional
Israeli government.

But many deny Kasztner's claims.

Kasztner feels abandoned
by the Israeli government,

knowing they fear he will reveal
the reason for his testimony.

SIRENS WAIL

Kasztner dies
never revealing the reason

for his testimony in Nuremberg.

The secrets he knew about
the Israeli government

are thought to be safe forever.

But just four years later,

the risk of the secrets
being revealed returns

when the possibility of Sassen's
tapes being heard in court emerges.

The tapes contain information

that connects to Kasztner's
testimony in Nuremberg.

Eichmann discusses
a Nazi officer named Kurt Becher,

who is one of the men that Kasztner
testifies for at the trials.

Becher manages the assets
seized from Hungarian Jews,

including companies like
Manfred Weiss Steel,

which had 40,000 employees
during the war,

and Eichmann mentions on the tapes.

Years later,

a possible reason for Kasztner's
testimony at Nuremberg is revealed.

Declassified documents confirm
that the young state of Israel

used funds that Kurt Becher
seized from Jewish families

during the war, to obtain arms.

The Israeli leadership learns
from the Life article

that Kasztner helps Eichmann
to keep the Hungarian Jews

from resisting deportation
in exchange for allowing

a few hundred Jews
train passage to Switzerland.

And they fear what else
might be revealed.

Hausner's request
that the transcripts

of the Sassen interviews
be admitted into evidence

once again creates
a sense of concern

on the part of
the Israeli government.

But Eichmann's lawyer, Servatius,

objects to their admittance

based on the fact
there is no way to prove

that the transcripts
are Eichmann's actual words.

The judges decide to disqualify

the 700 pages of
the Sassen transcripts,

but make an exception
for a few pages

where Eichmann's notes
are clearly visible.

There was no way that
Hausner could actually verify

the truthfulness of
the transcripts themselves.

Now, he did not have the audiotapes.

Much surrounding Kasztner's death
remains a mystery.

Three men with ties to a right-wing
underground movement were arrested.

They claimed they acted alone.

Convicted of murder, they were
sentenced to life in prison,

but in 1963, just a year
after the Eichmann trial,

they were granted a full pardon
and released from prison.

While the tapes are never
heard during the trial,

Eichmann clearly says
that Kasztner confronted him

regarding the fate
of his fellow Jews.

The disqualification of
the Sassen transcripts

is a victory for the defence

and a major blow to Attorney General
Hausner's case against Eichmann.

Unable to locate the tapes or use
the majority of the transcripts

to prove Eichmann's guilt,

Hausner summons
the survivors of the Holocaust

to confront Eichmann with
the horrors his crimes inflicted.

The author Yehiel De-Nur,
known by his pen name Ka-Tsetnik,

writes books influenced
by his time as a prisoner

in the Auschwitz death camp.

He told me that
he did not want to testify.

He was not sleeping,
he couldn't eat,

and Kasztner put
such a heavy pressure on him

that his resistance broke.

He took his pen name, Ka-Tsetnik,

from the initials for the
German word for concentration camp

and the number tattooed on
each prisoner's arm by the Nazis.

DE-NUR CRIES OUT: Ah!

Argh!

In retrospect, Hausner was right.

In their collective memory,

the one testimony
that was imprinted forcefully

was that testimony of Ka-Tsetnik.

TONE BEEPS

Miki Goldmann serves as Hausner's
assistant during the trial.

One survivor's testimony
will stick with him forever.

CLAMOUR

I think there was a tendency,
certainly amongst Israelis,

to see survivors
as the ghetto Jews.

They called them sabonim,
"the soaps".

The people who were supposed to be
made into soap.

So in other words,
"They're not like us.

"There was something
fatally flawed about them

"that they ALLOWED this
to happen to them."

These people,
these tongue-tied people,

they'll never be again the same
they were before Hitler came there

and before the roof
caved in on them.

There is something traumatic
in their make-up

which will never be good again.

At the conclusion of
the witnesses' testimony,

Hausner confronts Eichmann
with irrefutable evidence

of the atrocities
committed by the Nazis.

All the lights were off
in the courtroom,

and documentary pictures,

or news pictures,
were being projected on the wall.

Bodies being bulldozed
into a death pit. Awful.

But we had one camera on Eichmann.

And it looked as if he was laughing.

As if it was the first time
you could see - who was Eichmann,

what he felt like.

Towards the end of the war,

even when it is clear
Germany is going to lose,

Eichmann's murderous intent
is unrelenting.

NEWSREEL:
It was certainly great news

when we heard that the
7th British Armoured Division,

the Desert Rats,
is in action in France,

and the Germans don't like it.

They know to their cost what it is
to come in contact with them.

There was a vision amongst some
leading Nazis, Himmler among them,

that there would emerge some kind of
Nazi Germany without Hitler.

And there came the order from
Himmler to stop the deportations.

And still, there was this one
transport that Eichmann sent

against Himmler's order
to Auschwitz.

He could say whatever he wanted.

You're being, you know,
small wheel in a big engine,

and obeying orders.

At this point,
he went against orders,

and he killed 2,000 people.

His insane fanaticism in Hungary,

where he even went behind
the back of his great superior,

Heinrich Himmler. He made moves
he was not allowed to do,

just to finally accomplish

one achievement written
on his own name, Adolf Eichmann.

Without the tapes, the biggest
challenge Hausner faced

was to break Eichmann,
during the cross-examination

to admit that he was a key person in
the execution of the Final Solution.

Hausner failed.

Eichmann did not break
through the cross-examination.

Hausner later wrote in his book
Justice In Jerusalem,

"I wanted to get the Sassen tapes

"to bring Eichmann's defence
to a complete standstill.

"Then he could hardly have been able
to deny his own voice."

Hausner also wrote that
an anonymous source

offered to sell him the recordings
on one condition -

that he could not play them
in the courtroom during the trial.

Hausner refuses,

and the Sassen recordings are
never played at the Eichmann trial.

Why those tapes didn't appear

and make it possible
to introduce, as a confession,

Eichmann's own words,

why they didn't appear
at the trial...

The answer to that question
has great moral consequences.

If there is one thing
that is very clear today,

it's that the abduction of Eichmann
is the most sensitive part

in the semi-secret relations
between Israel and Germany -

or, if you like,
between Ben-Gurion and Adenauer.

We got the tapes in 1999
from a newspaper in Switzerland.

We knew that this newspaper
bought these tapes

from the family of Eichmann.

Can you tell us who is
the owner of the tapes?

We have signed that we
won't tell who the owner is.

Sassen always knew the value of
the Eichmann interview.

Just before his death, perhaps to
make amends to his fellow Nazi,

he gives the tapes
to the Eichmann family.

Around the same time,

Sassen is secretly filmed
by an Argentinian film-maker

and asked about
his sessions with Eichmann.

We are very fortunate that,
due to Sassen's delusions

and Eichmann's vanity, we have
an incontrovertible confession

from the architect
of the Holocaust.

So the tapes, the
legacy of the tapes,

is...it's hopeful,

which means that there is hope
that big lies can be exploded.

Perpetrators of such crimes

should never feel comfortable
that they can get away with it.

They might have been sure in 1959,
but after 1960,

they could never quite
sleep as soundly,

and that was a good thing.