Hitler's Henchmen (7/12) : Eichmann - The Exterminator
For educational purposes
Eichmann was a pen-pusher who committed mass murder with rubber stamps and signatures, from his desk, he meticulously organised the deportations of Jews to the death camps.
As head of the Jewish Affairs Department at the Headquarters of National Security, he organized in detail the deportation of more than three million Jews to death camps throughout the Third Reich.
He was hanged in 1962 after a sensational trial in Israel.
The film shows Eichmann's career, describes his role as one of the most important cogs in the death machinery and reveals captivating details about how he was finally captured and abducted by Israel's secret police.
Eichmann was a pen-pusher who committed mass murder with rubber stamps and signatures, from his desk, he meticulously organised the deportations of Jews to the death camps.
As head of the Jewish Affairs Department at the Headquarters of National Security, he organized in detail the deportation of more than three million Jews to death camps throughout the Third Reich.
He was hanged in 1962 after a sensational trial in Israel.
The film shows Eichmann's career, describes his role as one of the most important cogs in the death machinery and reveals captivating details about how he was finally captured and abducted by Israel's secret police.
Transcript
00:00Buenos Aires, May the 11th, 1960.
00:14A man who had been on the run for 15 years.
00:20Things happened fast.
00:50A man who had been on the run for 15 years.
01:14Suddenly he said very calmly, as if he were talking to himself,
01:18I have already surrendered to my fate.
01:21That was of course something very special for me.
01:24First I knew he was German, he knew what it was about,
01:28it could only be Eichmann.
01:49The accused committed the murder of millions of Jews
01:53between 1939 and 1945.
01:58I don't know if I would have paid particular attention to him
02:01if I had met him on the bus.
02:04Nevertheless, sometimes when he didn't like something,
02:07there was a look in his eyes that could probably scare you.
02:12A tiger's gaze.
02:18If he had been ordered to kill all the redheads
02:22or all the people from the telephone book
02:25whose name starts with K, he would have done it.
02:31Did he merely follow orders?
02:34He acted from conviction.
02:37The greatest thing he wanted, he wanted to be received by Hitler
02:41and he should thank him for that.
02:44That was his dream.
02:46He never achieved it and he never forgot it.
02:51In the past, you all laughed at these Jews.
02:54You thought it was a joke.
02:57Today you don't laugh anymore.
03:00You know it has become a bloody serious matter.
03:05I regret and condemn the extermination activities
03:09organized by the then German government
03:13against the Jews.
03:15Recordings now broadcast for the first time show another Eichmann
03:20talking with a fellow SS officer.
03:40March 15, 1938.
03:44Hitler in Vienna, the new ruler of Austria, Eichmann's home.
04:04For the 200,000 Austrian Jews,
04:06Hitler's visitation was the darkest moment in their history.
04:11The Jewish quarter in Vienna.
04:15Here ruled...
04:26The evil hour.
04:29It started with graffiti.
04:34Incitement paved the way for activists.
04:38The heralds of destruction were already in the country.
04:43Among Himmler's entourage was Untersturmführer Eichmann.
04:49Born in Germany, he grew up in Linz in Austria.
04:53He went to the same school as Hitler and was just as much a failure.
04:58He left without a leaving certificate.
05:00His father's business is still in operation.
05:06His first job, travelling salesman for an oil firm.
05:09The depression came and he was sacked.
05:16Here was a man in his mid-twenties
05:18looking for an occupation and a purpose in life.
05:23Marching in step with these troops,
05:25Eichmann was driven by a desire for recognition
05:28and a career in the SS.
05:32Total loyalty to a dark power.
05:50Unconditional subordination was Eichmann's mission.
05:55Eichmann's credo.
06:11Loyalty also to the concept of the enemy, the Jews.
06:17This was the career opportunity for Eichmann in the SS.
06:21He studied the enemy keenly.
06:25A thorough smattering of knowledge.
06:29The Tsar of the Jews, he later called himself.
06:34Eichmann even wanted to learn Hebrew from a rabbi.
06:39His request was refused. His teacher had to be an Aryan.
06:49He was, however, granted a paid trip to Palestine.
06:55A refuge of many of those persecuted by the Nazi terror.
07:00A flying visit to a kibbutz.
07:02Disguised as a journalist,
07:04Eichmann researched possibilities for deporting Jews.
07:07But the SS tourist's cover was blown.
07:10Eichmann was photographed by the British Secret Service and deported.
07:14His field trip was over.
07:19Eichmann's superiors rewarded his zeal with top marks.
07:23His commitment to National Socialism? Unconditional.
07:27His knowledge of his field? Very good.
07:31His special skills? Negotiating, speaking, organising.
07:41Vienna, 1938. His first chance to prove his worth.
07:46Eichmann the expert was to drive out all the Jews.
07:50A raid.
07:55In the Israelite community,
08:00Eichmann was on the scene.
08:03Searching. Arresting.
08:07Humiliating.
08:11For the first time,
08:13he held back the Jews.
08:16For the first time,
08:18he held power over people.
08:22Thousands of Jews saw what was coming.
08:24They fled.
08:27I had to leave Vienna within 24 hours,
08:30and I fled through night and fog
08:32into the Swiss mountains
08:34over Austria and Vorarlberg.
08:39In front of the American embassy in Vienna,
08:42desperate Jews, strangers in their own land.
08:47The exodus was too slow for Eichmann.
08:50He tried to speed it up
08:52with the Central Office of Jewish Aid.
08:54With the Central Office of Jewish Emigration,
08:57here people got their papers in record time.
09:01The cost? A fortune.
09:04Expulsion as grand larceny.
09:07Eichmann's enterprise.
09:24There was hardly any exception.
09:26He was the only one.
09:29And that struck him terribly.
09:33He wanted to show that
09:35he was not an academic,
09:37but that he could do it,
09:39and that he would prove it.
09:41And he pursued that all his life.
09:43That is, as long as he lived in the Third Reich,
09:46he kept going.
09:50The social climber's driving sense of inferiority
09:53masked his arrogance when he entered his office
09:56in a Viennese mansion.
09:58A Herrenmensch at last.
10:24A conveyor belt.
10:2645,000 people in eight months.
10:28The staff were Jews.
10:32Eichmann used his victims as assistants.
10:54This means that at least 2,000 Jews had to march every day.
11:00One to submit an application
11:02and to get the passport.
11:06The other to sign the passport and to pick it up.
11:11So it was a happy coming and going.
11:15Eichmann, the social climber.
11:17In the grand surroundings of his office,
11:19the man who expelled Jews also received them.
11:22If they had something to offer.
11:5320 minutes for 3,000 lives.
11:55That's the number of Jewish children
11:57Kolleck wanted to take to England.
11:59Eichmann agreed.
12:23Those who stayed continued to live in fear.
12:26The Jewish cemetery in Vienna documents their despair.
12:34Help us, dear God.
12:43Eichmann enjoyed the trappings of power.
12:48He wanted people to see how important he was
12:50with his personal chauffeur and the Rothschild's limousine.
12:58Eichmann was married.
13:00Was honor loyalty in this case?
13:02Friends said he had several lovers.
13:06He was loyal only to himself.
13:21Reinhard Heydrich was satisfied.
13:24Eichmann was a model pupil.
13:26At a conference, Heydrich recommended
13:28Eichmann's Viennese model for all Germany.
13:34The SS needed men like him.
13:36Totally dedicated, efficient.
13:42Eichmann was ordered to Berlin
13:44and made officer in charge of Jewish affairs
13:46for the whole Reich.
13:48The Reich Security Central Office.
13:51Headquarters first for expulsion,
13:53then for extermination of the Jews.
13:59The outbreak of war.
14:01Now there were new, bigger tasks for Adolf Eichmann.
14:04All over Poland, ghettos were being created.
14:08A temporary measure.
14:10No country was willing to take more Jews.
14:13Eichmann looked for alternatives.
14:15A Jewish state near Krakow?
14:18Send them to Madagascar?
14:21Ideas he played with, but discarded.
14:24An SS comrade wrote to him.
14:26We should consider disposing of the Jews
14:29by a fast-working method.
14:32Invasion of the Soviet Union.
14:34The method was applied at once.
14:37Behind the front line,
14:39the Soviet Union.
14:41Behind the front line, mass shootings.
14:49Eichmann was a witness.
15:11This is a terrible dream for me.
15:14I have only said,
15:16Group leader, this is not how it is.
15:18This is not how we can solve the issue of the Jews.
15:21This is how we raise our own men to be sadists.
15:29He himself played a part.
15:32The Foreign Office wanted to know
15:34what to do with Serbius Jews.
15:36Rademacher replied,
15:38Eichmann suggests shooting them.
16:09For him, conscience and morality were strange.
16:31It was late summer.
16:34Late summer, when Heinrich ordered me to himself.
16:42He told me, the Führer has ordered
16:45the physical extermination of the Jews.
16:48And then I knew what to do.
16:50I didn't say anything,
16:52because I couldn't say anything more.
16:58Eichmann was informed
17:00because he had to organize the transports.
17:02He had nothing to say, but he acted.
17:07He thought shooting too brutal, too ineffective.
17:12And looked for new methods of extermination.
17:19In the summer of 1941, he visited Auschwitz.
17:23Camp Commandant Huss and Deportation Chief Eichmann.
17:27Two specialists, deep in conversation.
17:30What was to be done with the transports?
17:33Eichmann wanted to look into gas,
17:35a method of murder which would spare the executioners.
17:39A few weeks later, in September 1941,
17:42the first prisoners were gassed in Auschwitz.
17:45Huss described Eichmann as a man full of energy,
17:48obsessed by the order for the final solution
17:51and always on the lookout for improvements.
17:54Zyklon B, Zyklon B.
17:59The mass executions had been taking place for some time,
18:02when the details were discussed in the Villa in Grossenwanzee
18:05by the German authorities.
18:07The execution of the Jews,
18:09the mass executions of the Jews,
18:11the mass executions of the Jews,
18:13were discussed in the Villa in Grossenwanzee
18:15by the leading Nazi bureaucrats.
18:19Heydrich, Eichmann's boss, was in the chair.
18:23Here at the Wannsee Conference,
18:26the prominence of the Reich was spoken of.
18:29It was ordered by the Pope.
18:32I had to obey.
18:34And that's what I thought in all the years to come.
18:40Eichmann took the minutes, but that's not all.
18:45Painstakingly, the bureaucrat worked out
18:48how many Jews could be murdered.
18:5111 million.
18:55Paper doesn't bleed.
19:04In the minutes, Eichmann concealed
19:06what was discussed openly in the Wannsee Villa.
19:09Killing, eliminating, exterminating.
19:14Eichmann translated the Villa into German.
19:18Eichmann translated.
19:20The victims were to be treated accordingly.
19:24The language of camouflage, Eichmann's language.
19:29Relaxing around the fire after the Wannsee Conference,
19:32Eichmann, Heydrich and Gestapo chief Müller,
19:35after a good day's work.
19:48Europe's Jews were to be evacuated to the east,
19:51in Eichmann's trains.
19:53He coordinated all the deportations.
19:56As here in Dresden, all over occupied Europe,
19:59Jews were herded together.
20:01Always on hand, Eichmann's men.
20:04They supervised the smooth running of the operations.
20:18On the platform were the bookkeepers, Eichmann's helpers.
20:22The Jews were recorded as people, but herded like cattle.
20:26The timetables for the death trains
20:28were written by the expert for Jewish questions in Berlin.
20:35Murdered to a timetable.
20:37The Reich Railways and major client Eichmann
20:39worked closely together.
20:41The SS paid.
20:43Four pfennigs per passenger per kilometre.
20:45One-way tickets only, no returns available.
20:50Murder by signature.
20:54The ghetto of Theresienstadt, 60 kilometres from Prague.
20:59This propaganda film was meant to disguise the horror.
21:03Eichmann was behind it,
21:05spreading the illusion of the humane concentration camp.
21:08Music and dance instead of murder and mayhem.
21:12Prayer rooms as part of the cover-up.
21:16Eichmann tried to deceive the world.
21:21A dozen times the controller of the death trains
21:24inspected his concentration camp.
21:27The inmates feared the worst when he appeared.
21:41Eichmann was connected to the East.
21:45Eichmann was a man about death and life.
21:48It was known that he had an immeasurable power.
21:58Theresienstadt.
22:00For many of these children,
22:02just a way station en route to a certain death.
22:12Auschwitz, the end of the line.
22:14The summer of 1942.
22:16The coordinator wanted to know
22:18how many transports the extermination camp could handle.
22:23An inspection at Birkenau.
22:41I remember when I saw that.
22:43Do you know what I did then?
22:45And I always do that
22:47when something terribly unpleasant happens.
22:50And I can't get away from the memories.
22:54And if I don't leave now,
22:56do you know what I'll say?
22:58You'll laugh.
23:00I think the concentration camp was a part
23:02of the horror of the birth of Maria.
23:04The concentration camp was not only a place
23:06for the extermination, but also a place
23:08for the extermination.
23:11He wasn't too strong inside.
23:14Especially this cruel way,
23:17with the burning of the bodies and so on.
23:21He didn't sweat in excess.
23:24And he didn't give in.
23:29I wasn't there.
23:31But I also saw
23:33that he had a real hot water bottle
23:36with a slivovitz in it.
23:39I quickly closed it.
23:41I saw that he was annoying again in the end.
23:46The death-bound murderer at the scene of the crime.
23:50I did my job
23:52according to the iron rule
23:55that was imposed on me.
23:58I was impressed by this event
24:01that I had to see.
24:03I had to ask my boss
24:06several times
24:08to finally free me from it.
24:33He himself said
24:35that he had never felt hatred.
24:37I was never anti-Semitic,
24:39but I was a nationalist.
24:41I find it hard to believe.
24:44Because I believe that someone
24:46who doesn't have this hatred
24:48is almost impossible
24:51to carry out such a thing.
24:54And with this extremism.
24:58I had the order
25:00to create the timetable
25:02and everything that had to do with it.
25:04He received information
25:06that several thousand Jews
25:08at the Romanian-Russian border
25:10were killed by local militia groups
25:14and their bodies were thrown into the river.
25:18He was furious.
25:20He had a fit of anger.
25:22Not for humanitarian reasons,
25:24but he said that he was losing
25:26the statistical overview.
25:28That if he tried to kill the Romanian Jews,
25:31he didn't know how many thousand were missing.
25:34Some of them could have escaped.
25:38Nobody was to escape his statistics,
25:41least of all Jewish children.
25:43The germ cells, as he called them.
25:45He ordered them to the death camps, too.
25:48People.
25:49To Eichmann?
25:50Just numbers.
25:52I wasn't even interested
25:54in deporting Jews,
25:56let alone thousands.
25:58I wasn't even interested
26:00in deporting Hungarians.
26:04I didn't even care
26:06if they were alive or dead.
26:08I didn't care
26:10who was delivered.
26:16In March 1944,
26:18the Holocaust reached Hungary.
26:21700,000 Jews lived there.
26:25On his 38th birthday,
26:27Eichmann set to work
26:29as the head of a special squad.
26:31His job?
26:32To deport all the Jews from Hungary.
26:35Eichmann, the executioner.
26:40The deportations began in the country.
26:43Tragically, the conditions were favorable.
26:46The Hungarian authorities
26:48only too willingly helped Eichmann hunt the Jews.
26:51Budapest, Hotel Majestic.
26:53Eichmann's headquarters
26:55for the last great murder campaign.
26:58Again, he used his victims.
27:00To the Committee to Save the Jews,
27:02the extortioner suggested
27:04a fateful exchange.
27:06I am ready to sell you
27:08one million Jews.
27:10Goods for blood.
27:12Blood for goods.
27:14What do you want saved?
27:18Producible men.
27:20He didn't say producible.
27:22He said producible men.
27:24Pregnant women.
27:26Children.
27:27Graves.
27:28Talk.
27:30A deal in life and death.
27:32The price?
27:33The Allies would give the Germans
27:3510,000 trucks for the Eastern Front.
27:37Was it a serious proposition?
27:40Brand flew to Istanbul
27:42to procure the ransom money.
27:44Leaving behind his wife and children as pawns,
27:47Eichmann threatened that if Brand failed...
27:50I'll keep the mills of Auschwitz turning.
27:53But he promised that as long as he was gone,
27:57there might be peace.
28:00But he didn't keep his word.
28:04He even said that they should telegraph
28:07that he should come back soon
28:11because every day 12,000 people
28:15come to Auschwitz.
28:18Aerial photographs taken by the Americans.
28:23The Allies knew about the mass killings.
28:25The crematoria are clearly visible.
28:28Photos instead of bombs.
28:32Brand's efforts were in vain.
28:34The West refused.
28:39In fact, Eichmann's deal was just a smokescreen.
28:43He didn't want to negotiate.
28:45He wanted to deport.
28:47He deceived his victims to keep them from rebelling.
28:51In the synagogues, informers spread Eichmann's lies
28:54about family camps in Germany.
28:56Exactly where his trains went
28:58stayed a deadly secret for most Jews.
29:05His plan worked.
29:07Hungary as quiet as the grave.
29:20We didn't know where it came from.
29:23Nothing else.
29:25Only Schwarzwald was on the stamps, on the maps.
29:28The relatives wrote,
29:31we're fine,
29:33you shouldn't worry about us.
29:36And signatures.
29:40We thought,
29:42when we were sent into the wagons,
29:45maybe we'll get there too.
29:47To Schwarzwald.
29:49If they're doing so well.
29:57In just two months,
29:59450,000 Hungarian Jews were deported.
30:08100 people squashed like cattle into one truck.
30:12The deaths started even before they reached the camp.
30:16On the platform, unwitting,
30:19and full of false hopes.
30:46The summer of 1944.
30:48The war had long been decided.
30:50The Red Army was advancing.
30:54Eichmann's trains kept running.
30:57Time was running out.
31:01Eichmann fought for every train.
31:15He knew he was sabotaging Germany's war effort.
31:18He said to his friends,
31:20I know the war is lost,
31:22but I will still win my war.
31:24Then he went to Auschwitz
31:26to bring up the killing rate
31:28from 10,000 a day to 12,000 a day.
31:32A frenzy of extermination
31:34to please Hitler.
31:37His ally, Hungarian leader Horthy,
31:39stopped the deportations.
31:41Too late for hundreds of thousands of people.
31:43But Eichmann didn't want to stop.
32:14They were able to deport people from the outskirts of Budapest.
32:27Himmler knew the war was lost.
32:29He wanted to stop the death trains.
32:31He dreamt of peace with the West.
32:33Eichmann's nightmare.
32:44October 1944.
32:46A coup in Hungary.
32:48Horthy was ousted.
32:50Hungary's fascists,
32:52the Arrow Cross movement,
32:54assumed power.
32:56Eichmann was off the leash again.
33:00Budapest's Jews were finally in the trap.
33:13The Arrow Cross saw it.
33:15Máris somehow got involved.
33:17He got out.
33:19In a worse case,
33:21the Jews were simply taken to the Danube
33:24and shot into the Danube.
33:32Jews were hunted down on the streets of Budapest.
33:39Tens of thousands desperately sought refuge.
33:43Salvation for many.
33:45Safe houses.
33:46Islands in a sea of hate.
33:50As here in Liberty Square,
33:52safe houses bearing the yellow star sprang up all over Budapest.
33:56More than a hundred in all.
34:01They were set up by courageous diplomats
34:03like the Swede Raoul Wallenberg
34:05and Karl Lutz, a Swiss.
34:09They stood up to Eichmann and fought him with his own weapons.
34:12Documents and rubber stamps.
34:19Whoever was in this book could still hope.
34:22Thanks to communal passports and safe houses,
34:25over 100,000 Jews survived.
34:32Resistance was growing.
34:34Eichmann was under pressure and in fear of his life.
34:38I had the impression that he was full of fear.
34:42Look, you can see the steel helmet there on the table.
34:46And then the revolver.
34:48And he also had a tick.
34:50He always choked or yucked with his mouth or something.
34:56So that was a sign that he was nervous.
35:03He was afraid of the future.
35:06He was afraid of the future.
35:08He was afraid.
35:11When someone photographed him, he became paranoid.
35:16He tried to get the film out of the camera.
35:22And if he didn't, he paid for the camera that he destroyed.
35:29He knew that he would be wanted.
35:34His fear was indeed justified.
35:36Some of these victims attempted to resist.
35:54A plot to bomb Eichmann was stopped at the last minute
35:57for fear of retaliation against the Budapest Jews.
36:01The final act of the tragedy.
36:03Allied bombers destroyed railway tracks in Hungary.
36:06There weren't enough trains,
36:08so Eichmann sent over 50,000 Budapest Jews on foot to Austria.
36:15On labour assignment.
36:30I saw people in front of me who were tired,
36:33or who didn't walk fast enough,
36:36or who couldn't run fast enough.
36:39They were shot in the column.
36:44It was a race against death.
36:55Death came in the shape of a master from Germany
36:58who liked to play the violin.
37:01So Eichmann's staff called him...
37:08Maestro.
37:29And what will it be like after the war?
37:34The world will ask millions of questions.
37:39Eichmann answered them coldly and clearly.
37:46100 dead are a catastrophe.
37:49One million dead is a statistic.
37:53I had to carry out the transports according to orders.
37:57And I also knew that a part of these people
38:00would be killed in the camps.
38:03I have to confess to this truthfully.
38:06Eichmann knew the whole truth.
38:08He'd already revealed it during the war.
38:11The four million in the extermination camps
38:14and the two million by command of the army
38:19and the two million by the KZs.
38:23That would be six million.
38:48Eichmann was a target for SS dignitaries.
38:51In the mountains of his Austrian homeland,
38:54Eichmann wanted to fight to the end as a partisan leader.
38:58His commanding officer, Carlton Brunner,
39:01wanted nothing more to do with him.
39:19There were no orders. Eichmann was disoriented.
39:23His old comrades-in-arms told him to disappear.
39:27Eichmann, the security risk.
39:30On the run, he was arrested by G.I.s
39:33and was swallowed up in the vast army of prisoners of war.
39:37One of millions, he went unrecognized.
39:40But he was afraid of his true identity coming out.
39:43A new life and new names.
39:45Barth, Eckmann, Henninger.
39:48The tsar of the Jews was now a woodcutter and poultry farmer.
39:52At the Nuremberg trial, his name came up.
39:55A foreshadowed defendant.
39:57Documents and statements proved his guilt.
40:01The hunt for Eichmann was a great success.
40:04Eichmann was the first of his kind.
40:07Eichmann was the first of his kind.
40:11The hunt for Eichmann began.
40:14He fled with a passport provided by men of the church.
40:22Buenos Aires, 1950. His new home.
40:25Adolf Eichmann was now called Ricardo Clement.
40:29He left the city and moved to the country where he could hide more easily.
40:34He proved a failure at his new job.
40:41Hydrology.
41:01A new Eichmann?
41:03He broke with the past, put it out of his mind.
41:10If you were asked about his past,
41:13you wouldn't get an answer or a change of mind.
41:17He wasn't shown.
41:23Eichmann was sacked.
41:25Again looking for an occupation.
41:28Rabbit breeder, laundry owner, factory worker.
41:33Moving back from the country to Buenos Aires,
41:36Ricardo Clement lived an untroubled existence here for years.
41:40His wife and children still bore the name Eichmann.
41:43Then a Jew made the decisive tip-off.
41:48The Israeli secret service sent an agent.
42:07Bad luck for the agent.
42:09Eichmann had moved just two weeks before.
42:12Zvi Aharoni, born in Frankfurt on the Oder,
42:15was on Eichmann's trail.
42:17Unanswered questions, false leads.
42:20Then came the breakthrough.
42:22A neighbor knew where the German was now living.
42:25In the suburb of San Fernando, Garibaldi Street,
42:28Eichmann had found a house.
42:30He had been living there for a long time.
42:33In the suburb of San Fernando, Garibaldi Street,
42:36Aharoni watched the house.
42:41Everything tallied.
42:43His age, size, the general impression.
42:46The agent was sure it must be Eichmann.
42:49He reported back to Tel Aviv.
42:52I believe we should start on the next phase of the operation.
42:57The final proof, a photo, was missing.
43:03It depended on how to deal with the camera.
43:06When he finished, I thought he would make it,
43:09we drove in front of the house on Sunday morning.
43:12We waited 200-300 meters until I saw Eichmann
43:15going out of the house into the bushes.
43:18I wanted to be sure.
43:21We caught him in the yard.
43:24Then the man left.
43:27He met him and took four fantastic pictures.
43:31From the beginning, we did not intend to kill Eichmann,
43:34but only to arrest him and bring him to trial in Israel.
44:01Getaway vehicles, false passports, a safe house.
44:04A risky venture on foreign soil.
44:11Eichmann suspected nothing.
44:31Every evening, we arrived with the same bus at 7.45.
44:34We quickly decided that this was the best time
44:37to catch him before his house.
45:0027th, 1960.
45:30This was the first time.
45:33We arrived on time every evening at 7.
45:36This time he was not there.
46:00Some day later, I said,
46:03no, we wait.
46:06And at 8 o'clock,
46:09I was asked again,
46:12OK, what we should do?
46:15I said, we wait.
46:1815 minutes later, another bus came.
46:31Eichmann was arrested.
46:44Aroni saw him first.
46:47And then he felt
46:50that Eichmann had his hand in the pocket
46:54and he was afraid
46:58that maybe Eichmann had a gun.
47:04When we passed the car,
47:07Zwicker stopped him.
47:10We wanted him to talk to him
47:13before he grabbed him.
47:16Zwicker followed him
47:19and they both rolled around in the ditch
47:22three or four meters away from the car.
47:26Eichmann screamed.
47:29He was screaming.
47:32I could imitate him.
47:35Something like that.
47:55A cafe in Buenos Aires.
47:58Impatiently Mossad Chief Isser Harrell
48:01waited for news.
48:26In their safe house,
48:29Eichmann was interrogated.
48:32It was crucial that Ricardo Clement
48:35admit who he really was.
48:55I asked him a hundred questions
48:58that only Eichmann could answer.
49:01The size of his shoes,
49:04the size of his collar,
49:07the size of his clothes,
49:10the date of birth,
49:13the SS number, the NSDAP number,
49:16and so on.
49:19At the end I asked him
49:22without hesitation.
49:25That was the biggest moment
49:28of the whole operation.
49:31He said, I am Adolf Eichmann.
49:47After I was challenged by you,
49:50Mr. President, to give a clear answer,
49:53then I have to explain
49:56that I consider this murder,
49:59this extermination of the Jews
50:02as one of the most capital crimes
50:05in human history.
50:08That he said that for his defense,
50:11that he didn't mean it seriously,
50:14I think I could say.
50:17I had the misfortune
50:20to be wrapped up in this horror.
50:23But these misdeeds did not occur
50:26with my will.
50:29My will was not to kill people.
50:32But if he had been ordered to...
50:35I would have had to carry out
50:38the duties of a commander
50:41of a concentration camp.
50:44I would have done the same.
50:47If I were ordered
50:50to kill or exterminate Jews,
50:53I would have carried out the orders.
51:00Eichmann was sentenced to death
51:03for crimes against humanity and the Jewish people.
51:07His last hours were spent in Ramle prison near Tel Aviv.
51:11Just before he had to go, he watched me,
51:15and he said a few words in German.
51:19The deputy of the commander of the jail
51:24told me that he said that he hoped
51:28that all of us would go soon after him,
51:31and he went to the gallows very, very cool.
51:44On June 1st, 1962, Adolf Eichmann was executed.
51:49His ashes were scattered over the Mediterranean.
52:01For more information, visit www.fema.gov