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entire first season of Citadel

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Video.

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From the

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Spyscape podcast network. It's

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one of the most iconic vehicles of the 20th century. The 1963

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Aston Martin DB5. You

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can imagine yourself as Bond. The

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star of the film Goldfinger. You

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seat, it had the smoke bombs. It

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makes an impression. The real-life story

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of this legendary car twists like

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a spy movie thriller. The car

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and hasn't been seen since. Jump in

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the passenger seat to find out how and

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who would steal the most famous

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car in the world. You know what,

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this car is

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too beautiful to destroy. Missions,

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the great James Bond car robbery. With

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me, Elizabeth Hurley. You

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never know who is eventually

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going to come forward and say, I know

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where this car is.

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Available wherever you get your podcasts.

1:48

The

1:55

world we live

1:55

in. You'll

1:58

meet the people who live life. life undercover.

2:03

What do they know? What are their

2:05

skills? And what would you

2:07

do in their position?

2:10

This is True Spies. He

2:13

was a man with so much power.

2:15

Try to imagine what it has to mean to have

2:18

the power to kill millions of people.

2:20

I'm Sofia DiMartino, and this

2:23

is True Spies from Spyscape

2:25

Studios. Extracting

2:28

Eichmann. Part 2. Rat

2:31

Trap.

2:37

May 11, 1960.

2:37

Buenos

2:41

Aires. Gary Baldy Street.

2:44

It was almost exactly the same time every

2:46

day. 7.30pm is where the bus

2:48

arrived.

2:50

This night, however, the

2:52

bus is running unusually late. And

2:56

that's not the only anomaly. But

2:59

when it does arrive, the man who

3:01

alights

3:01

every evening at this exact stop is

3:04

a no-show. There are

3:06

no cars there, no other people.

3:09

Look close enough, and you'd see that actually

3:12

there are several men in the area, huddled

3:14

into two vehicles

3:15

across from the bus stop. And

3:18

not only ordinary men, they're some of the

3:20

best spies in the Mossad. Israel's

3:23

foreign intelligence agency.

3:25

Now, with their

3:27

mark missing in action, even

3:30

they are unsure of what's going

3:32

on. At that point, they weren't 100% sure

3:35

whether he actually didn't show up. They

3:37

thought maybe he did show up, maybe left the bus,

3:40

and a car or some other bus was

3:42

passing by, and they didn't see that that actually

3:44

happened.

3:45

The team decides to wait for the next

3:47

bus to arrive. If their

3:50

man doesn't show up then, the mission

3:52

could be over.

3:52

And that next bus was

3:54

late, too, by a few minutes,

3:57

and they were starting to think that maybe they

3:59

need to...

3:59

But then,

4:02

headlights appear in the distance.

4:05

A minute or so later, the 805 bus

4:08

arrives and opens its doors.

4:14

As it pulls away, it reveals

4:16

two people, a man and a woman,

4:19

heading in opposite directions. The

4:22

man starts walking toward the parked cars.

4:25

Instantly, the team knows it's

4:28

him, Ricardo

4:30

Clement. His real

4:32

name? Adolf Eichmann.

4:35

My father started walking

4:37

towards him.

4:39

As the two men, one a Jewish

4:41

spy and the other a notorious Nazi

4:44

in hiding, draw closer, the

4:46

sound of boots echoes over the field

4:48

between the bus stop and the house.

4:51

The same boots that he had when he was still

4:53

in the SS. As he

4:55

comes into clear review, the crew

4:58

grows concerned. The person

5:00

within the team was telling my father, look,

5:03

he's having one of his hands

5:05

in his pocket. Maybe he has a gun.

5:08

With no time to change plan, the

5:11

agent carries on. And so

5:13

they kept walking towards each other. My father

5:16

was close enough to him and then said

5:18

to him,

5:20

Uno momentito. In

5:27

the last episode of True Spies, we

5:29

heard how the Mossad tracked down

5:31

the infamous Nazi Adolf Eichmann

5:34

to a small house in suburban

5:36

Buenos Aires, Argentina. In

5:39

this, the second part of True Spies

5:42

extracting Eichmann, we'll hear

5:44

how the Mossad attempted one of the most

5:46

important operations in its

5:48

history. When

5:49

the Mossad finally went to Buenos Aires

5:51

with this huge mission, in

5:54

a country fraught with danger,

5:56

the Nazis, they had a strong group

5:59

in Argentina that. time. To

6:01

capture the man responsible for transporting

6:03

millions of Jews to their deaths in

6:06

the Holocaust. If you give him

6:08

power again, he will do the same

6:10

thing again. We're

6:16

back in Buenos Aires, May 1960.

6:20

After years of searching, the Mossad

6:22

have tracked down one of their most wanted

6:25

targets, Adolf Eichmann.

6:28

But the Israeli intelligence agency's

6:30

mission is unprecedented. Instead

6:33

of simply eliminating Eichmann, a

6:36

far easier operation, the

6:38

Mossad are charged with capturing

6:40

and smuggling him some 7,500 miles back to

6:42

Israel.

6:46

They were there operating undercover

6:49

in a country that was not so friendly with

6:51

Israel or with this kind of operations.

6:54

This is Ariel Magnus, an

6:57

Argentinian writer and author of

6:59

a novel inspired by Eichmann.

7:02

Just to get caught, it will be an international

7:05

disaster. After all, sending

7:07

personnel into a sovereign state to

7:09

kidnap someone and then haul him

7:12

away isn't exactly great diplomacy.

7:15

Knowing the risks, Mossad chief

7:17

Isa Harrell assembles a 10-man

7:20

team of his best agents to

7:22

go to Argentina.

7:24

One of them is a veteran spy called

7:26

Peter Malkin. He

7:29

was the head of operations. In addition to

7:31

that, he was a master of disguise.

7:34

This is Peter Malkin's son, Omar.

7:37

He also was good with what

7:39

we call Krav Maga in Israel or martial

7:42

arts. Developed specifically

7:44

for the Israeli Defense Force, Krav

7:47

Maga mixes techniques from

7:49

judo, karate, boxing and

7:51

wrestling. And being an expert

7:53

in Krav Maga, Peter was assigned

7:56

a specific job in the mission

7:58

to make the actual a capture of

8:01

Adolf Eichmann himself. He

8:03

was physically strong, was

8:06

common sense. Like the rest

8:08

of the team, the mission is personal

8:10

for Peter. He was in

8:12

Israel before the Holocaust, but

8:14

some of his family members, including his

8:17

sister and her children, never made

8:19

it and ended up dying in Auschwitz.

8:22

Without exception, all 10 agents

8:25

had agreed immediately to joining

8:27

the operation. The historic significance

8:30

to it made it very important

8:33

to do it right and bring Eichmann

8:35

to trial and not be

8:37

caught.

8:38

Most of the team were from Shin

8:40

Bet, Israel's internal

8:43

security service. Shin Bet's

8:45

motto was the unseen

8:47

shield. At the time, Israel's

8:50

secret service was still small and

8:53

overlap between divisions wasn't unusual.

8:56

Israel ran both the Mossad

8:58

and Shin Bet out of an office of just 12

9:01

people. And given the

9:03

significance of the mission, Israel

9:05

himself decided he also needed

9:07

to be on the ground in Buenos Aires.

9:11

With Israel's Prime Minister David Ben-Gurion

9:14

having given final authorization

9:16

for the mission, Israel assembled

9:18

the team in his office. There,

9:20

he reminded them of the importance of

9:23

the operation to the state of Israel

9:25

itself. We will bring

9:27

Adolf Eichmann to Jerusalem. It

9:29

will be recognized that, as a people,

9:32

we never forget. The

9:34

memory book lies open

9:36

and the hand still writes.

9:39

Then he turned to Rafi Eitan, field

9:42

commander of Operation Finale, and

9:45

asked, are your men

9:47

ready? All ready, Eitan

9:50

replied. With that

9:52

the team left,

9:53

each man preparing for his own, deliberately

9:56

separate journey to South America.

9:59

Peter Malzowski,

9:59

took a slightly different approach in

10:02

his preparations.

10:02

Aside from

10:04

practicing the grab on just about

10:07

anyone he came across within Mossad corridors,

10:10

he also collected more intel.

10:12

Not on Eichmann,

10:14

but on his own family history.

10:17

My father is a kid, and I remember that very clearly. I

10:19

always said that he had a hard time hearing

10:21

from his mother about the tragedies

10:24

and the fact that it was such a big thing, 6 million

10:27

people. He tried to avoid

10:29

hearing the stories. You know, he's just a regular

10:32

kid.

10:33

But now he needed to know.

10:35

He disguised himself as a friend of himself

10:38

and went to his mother's house in Haifa

10:41

in Israel and knocked on the door and told

10:43

her that he's here to rent a room in

10:45

her apartment.

10:47

Such a Peter's skills at disguise,

10:51

his own mother, doesn't recognize

10:53

him at all. She replies

10:56

that she's not renting a room,

10:58

but invites him in anyway.

11:00

Like a good Jewish mother feeding him

11:02

with a lot of food and all that, and

11:04

he was there for an hour plus. And the reason

11:06

he wanted to go there, because he wanted to, as

11:09

a stranger, not as her son, to be

11:11

able to witness what's in the

11:13

house, to see the picture of his sisters and

11:16

the kids, and to get a sense of the

11:18

story of the family, hearing it from her,

11:21

telling it to someone that's not her son. So

11:23

it'll be a little bit less heavy in

11:26

a way. And that was his first preparation,

11:28

getting into that mindset of, you know,

11:30

what he's going to do. A little bit like a, I

11:32

don't know if revenge is the right word, but closing

11:35

the loop on what happened to his family.

11:38

While the individual team members prepared

11:40

themselves for a mission unlike any

11:42

other, Isa Harrell was arranging

11:45

each of their aliases and travel

11:47

documents. Every agent

11:49

was to leave Tel Aviv under one

11:52

passport, then switch to another

11:54

in a third country, before travelling

11:57

on to Argentina. Entry

11:59

visas.

11:59

and vaccination statuses were

12:02

also needed, which Harrell ordered

12:04

his most creative staff to forge.

12:07

In this department, he was well equipped.

12:09

One of the 10-man team going to Argentina

12:12

was the master forger Shalom

12:15

Danny.

12:16

Danny had once managed to escape a

12:18

Nazi concentration camp

12:20

by fashioning a pass out of nothing

12:22

more than toilet paper. To

12:25

him, faking Argentinian visas

12:27

was simple. A third set

12:30

of papers was arranged too,

12:32

in case the mission was compromised in-country

12:35

and the team needed to evacuate.

12:38

Meanwhile, all sensitive equipment

12:40

that might be required, like handcuffs,

12:42

sedation drugs, lockpicks and disguises,

12:45

was sent to Argentina in diplomatic

12:48

pouches.

12:49

The Mossad made a huge operation.

12:52

It was so professional. Colleagues

12:55

had even remarked that Harrell's office

12:57

was beginning to look more like a travel agency

12:59

than that of the Mossad chief.

13:02

But now, with the final preparations

13:04

made,

13:05

Peter was finally on his way to

13:07

Argentina.

13:09

After several delays, he landed

13:11

in Buenos Aires on May

13:13

4th. It's a Harrell

13:16

and much of the rest of the team had already

13:18

been in the city for several days.

13:21

So compartmentalised was Harrell's

13:24

planning that even his agents

13:26

themselves didn't know where he

13:28

was staying. Instead,

13:30

he met with them only for a few minutes

13:32

to exchange absolutely necessary

13:35

information at one of tens of

13:37

cafes he frequented

13:38

each day. They had not

13:40

just one guest house but various

13:43

guest houses. It was close to ten houses.

13:46

After landing, Peter rendezvous

13:48

with the rest of the team at one of them.

13:51

There he learns that the capture is

13:53

just days away.

13:55

May 10th. In

13:57

terms of the actual capturing of

14:00

Adolf Eichmann. My father was

14:02

very opinionated about it and

14:04

wanted to make sure that he does it alone. He

14:06

felt that by him doing it alone he can

14:09

take care of all the different variables, not

14:11

worry about others, be very focused

14:13

on how he does it.

14:15

As men who leave nothing to chance,

14:17

the team gets to work surveilling Eichmann's

14:20

house, one of only two

14:22

on Garibaldi Street. Perched

14:25

the other side of a railway embankment some 50

14:28

yards away, Peter tracks Eichmann's

14:30

every step to and from his work

14:33

at a Mercedes-Benz factory.

14:35

He wanted to map the geography,

14:37

the area, with the steps. He

14:39

almost had it like as a song in his head where

14:41

he knew that at counts, you know, one

14:43

through four, it's him leaving

14:45

the bus, seven to eleven, it's, you know,

14:47

him walking towards the turn.

14:50

Twenty to twenty-seven is him doing

14:52

this and that and my father basically

14:55

mapped his actions based on that.

14:57

But seeing him in the flesh for the first

14:59

time, Peter, like some

15:02

of the other agents, is struck

15:04

by the sight of this old man

15:06

before him.

15:08

On one hand there's this monster that

15:10

was responsible for the final

15:12

solution and the killing of so

15:15

many millions of people,

15:17

Jews and non-Jews. And on the other hand,

15:19

he

15:19

just looks like a person

15:22

without much power.

15:24

In my family, there was somebody that entered

15:26

Mercedes-Benz seven years after

15:28

Eichmann. He worked there and he told

15:31

me that Eichmann had a very low position

15:34

in Mercedes-Benz. Good employees had

15:36

their own cars. He didn't. So

15:39

he was still poor.

15:40

That was Argentinian writer Ariel

15:42

Magnus again. He notes that

15:45

in this almost deserted area

15:47

of Buenos Aires outskirts, there's

15:49

another strange irony.

15:51

The only thing that was nearby

15:54

was a Jewish cemetery. Building

15:56

up a profile of Eichmann's routine,

15:59

the Mossad Adagents agree that

16:01

grabbing him on his walk from the bus

16:03

stop back home

16:05

is the best option.

16:06

It was

16:08

almost exactly the same time every day.

16:11

Dark, deserted. The

16:13

two-minute journey was as good an opportunity

16:15

as they would have. But how

16:18

they would do it was where the argument

16:20

started. The team in general

16:22

was a large team, so there were a lot of like

16:25

pension points. One in particular

16:27

boiled down to how Peter would approach

16:30

Eichmann. Svi Aheroni,

16:32

the man whose previous reconnaissance had

16:34

triggered the operation, suggested he

16:37

hide somewhere near the house before jumping

16:39

on him as he approached. The

16:41

support vehicles could then linger further

16:44

afield, lowering the risk of alerting

16:46

Eichmann before the grab.

16:49

To Peter, this was madness, telling

16:52

Aheroni so in no uncertain

16:54

terms. My father was very

16:56

confident that Eichmann is a German. He does

16:59

the things that he does in a very specific way. And

17:02

he walks every day from the bus to

17:04

the house in, you know, exact

17:07

same number of steps. And there is no

17:09

way that a car parking in the street,

17:12

even if it looks a bit non-obvious, will

17:14

make him change his plans.

17:17

The next morning, Peter, Svi

17:20

Aheroni and Rafi Eitan

17:22

meet with their boss, Isa Harel,

17:24

to settle the debate. Peter

17:27

presents his plan again.

17:28

My father was very opinionated

17:31

about it. And now he's backed

17:33

up his argument. Cars broke

17:36

down the whole time, like they were bad

17:38

cars in Argentina. Peter

17:40

and another agent would stand over the engine

17:43

of one of the cars, as if it had broken

17:45

down. It was like coming

17:47

to see somebody trying to fix the

17:49

car. That way Peter would

17:51

be much closer to backup in case

17:54

anything went awry, while also

17:56

having an excuse to approach Eichmann.

17:59

Harrell isn't convinced though. What

18:02

if Eichmann is spooked, runs away across

18:04

the field? I've seen

18:06

plenty of Nazis in shiny boots, Peter

18:09

says. They will not walk

18:11

through the mud unless they absolutely

18:13

have to. Saying

18:16

nothing, Harrell rises from the table.

18:19

Then he looks at Peter and says, fine,

18:23

but it's on your head.

18:24

That was a source

18:27

of tension. And my father

18:29

didn't think twice sometimes in

18:31

terms of breaking a rule here and there when he

18:33

thought it makes sense.

18:35

But while the plan itself is now agreed,

18:38

the timing has become a problem. On

18:41

May 9th, the day before the scheduled

18:44

grab, Raffi Eitann heads

18:46

back towards Garibaldi Street for

18:49

final reconnaissance.

18:50

But when he draws near, he's

18:53

dumbfounded by the scene. Police

18:56

are everywhere.

18:58

As Eitann approaches though, he

19:01

breathes a sigh of relief. It

19:03

is simply a traffic incident,

19:05

but before he can turn around, a policeman

19:08

knocks on his window. Hospital,

19:11

he says. Again before he can

19:13

do anything, Eitann turns

19:16

to see the back door opened and an injured

19:18

motorcyclist placed on the seat. Hospital,

19:22

the policeman repeats. Not wanting

19:24

to draw attention, Eitann simply

19:26

nods and drives off, barely able

19:29

to contain his disbelief. Dropping

19:32

his passenger off as asked, Eitann

19:34

knows they can't

19:35

go back to the scene tomorrow. Being

19:38

spotted in the same place on consecutive

19:40

days was out of the question to

19:42

a truce by. They couldn't take

19:44

the risk. While granting

19:46

the team a 24-hour delay,

19:49

Isaharel was growing uneasy.

19:52

His escape plan for the entire team

19:54

and Eitman

19:56

had a hitch. The

20:00

L.A.L. crew.

20:02

L.A.L. – Israel's national

20:04

airline. By a stroke of luck,

20:07

the mission coincided with the 150th anniversary

20:09

of Argentina.

20:12

To mark the occasion, the government had invited

20:15

dignitaries from countries all over the

20:17

world, including Israel.

20:20

And so they used this as

20:22

an excuse to bring one plane. It

20:25

was a perfect cover.

20:27

All they needed to do was get Eichmann

20:29

on board undetected.

20:32

But now there was a problem.

20:34

The Argentinian government announced that

20:36

they weren't ready to receive the Israeli delegation

20:39

until May 19th,

20:41

a week later than planned.

20:44

That meant hiding Eichmann in Argentina

20:47

for a whole week. Harrel

20:49

knew that almost immediately after he

20:51

disappeared, Eichmann's

20:52

three adult sons would

20:55

come looking for him.

20:57

Every hour mattered.

20:59

Eichmann could teach things. He'd

21:01

teach them as the Nazis would teach them.

21:04

They were fierce anti-Semites and

21:06

they were violent and so they were dangerous

21:09

people.

21:10

And they had dangerous connections.

21:13

There were many Nazis in Argentina and

21:15

they had a whole web of distribution.

21:19

And they felt so strong

21:21

that they even thought about the

21:23

possibility of establishing

21:26

a German government outside Germany

21:28

in Argentina.

21:29

Knowing that trying to alter the flight

21:32

schedule could arouse suspicion,

21:34

Harrel had little choice but to take

21:36

his chances. It

21:39

was not something the head of the Mossad

21:41

did lightly in a country some 8,000 miles away from home.

21:45

The team had to step up their preparations.

21:48

They mapped three different routes from Garibaldi

21:50

Street back to each of their near ten

21:52

safe houses, along with backup

21:55

routes in case they were followed. They

21:57

then built hidden compartments in each

21:59

country.

21:59

car and safe house to hide Eichmann

22:02

once caught. One of the team,

22:05

a master engineer and technician called

22:07

Moshe Tarboor, made an electronic

22:10

contraption that could change their car's

22:12

plates at the touch of a button.

22:15

And that wasn't the only final preparation

22:18

being made. In the garage

22:20

of one of the safe houses, Peter

22:22

was still rehearsing the grab.

22:25

My father realized obviously as he

22:27

was practicing the specific moment

22:30

of capture that he will have to probably

22:32

hold his mouth so that Eichmann will

22:35

not shout or scream. That

22:37

probably means that his hand will have to touch

22:39

his saliva and mouth.

22:42

Disgusted at the idea of being

22:44

anywhere near Eichmann's saliva,

22:47

Peter made sure that didn't happen.

22:50

The day or two before he went

22:52

and bought some gloves. The

22:55

plan was so precise that even

22:57

this small detail felt

22:59

like a compromise. He didn't

23:01

love the idea because without gloves you

23:03

feel everything. Everything feels more

23:05

natural. Gloves gives you an extra layer

23:07

that is not ideal but

23:10

pros versus cons he had to have the

23:12

gloves.

23:13

Despite now knowing Eichmann

23:15

to be a weaker older man,

23:17

Peter still wondered how much of a

23:20

physical threat he posed. He

23:22

was after all once a member of the

23:24

Nazi SD, the fearsome

23:26

intelligence unit that prided itself

23:29

on its physical prowess and kill numbers.

23:33

As the day of the capture approached, a

23:35

man who prided himself on bringing men

23:37

like Eichmann to justice was

23:39

growing impatient.

23:41

Our great hero Nazi

23:44

hunter Fritz Bauer. The

23:46

man who forced the Mossad's hand

23:48

into launching the operation, German

23:51

prosecutor Fritz Bauer, had

23:53

not heard anything from the Mossad since

23:55

his meeting with Isse Harel several

23:58

months ago.

23:59

To see Eichmann Court, he

24:02

wrote to Israel's Attorney General, Heim

24:04

Cohen, demanding an answer.

24:06

I assure you this matter is being attended

24:09

to intensely,

24:10

Cohen wrote back on May 10th.

24:13

We expect to report exact details shortly.

24:16

Little did Bauer know just how shortly.

24:19

For that same night, Harrell assembled

24:21

the team for one final meeting.

24:24

Tomorrow was the day.

24:27

Every man had switched to their third set

24:29

of identification papers.

24:31

Then they ran through the final

24:33

contingencies.

24:34

It could have been not so

24:37

nice, not so clean. What

24:39

if Clement was in fact not Eichmann?

24:42

They would drive him several hundred miles

24:45

north of the city, drop him off with some

24:47

cash and slip over the border into Brazil.

24:50

What if Eichmann escaped and reached his

24:52

house? Then they would

24:55

get heavy, breaking in,

24:57

taking him and outrunning the police while

24:59

the second car rammed any pursuers if

25:01

necessary.

25:02

What will happen if Eichmann comes with

25:04

his hands in his pocket holding a suitcase,

25:07

not holding something and all that? So a

25:09

lot of that was very important and how

25:11

to capture him without anyone seeing.

25:15

What if they were caught with Eichmann?

25:18

Under no circumstances whatsoever

25:20

are we to let him go, Harrell

25:22

said.

25:24

If surrounded, Rafi Aitarn

25:26

would handcuff himself to Eichmann and declare

25:28

the team Jewish volunteers with no

25:31

governmental authority.

25:33

You can expect at least three years in jail,

25:35

maybe ten, Harrell said. Sensing

25:38

a little unease, he continued,

25:41

for the first time in history, the Jews

25:43

will judge their assassins. You

25:46

were chosen by destiny. Everything

25:49

depends on the action we are about

25:51

to take.

25:52

With that, the team went back to their various

25:55

safe houses.

25:56

They would not see Harrell again until

25:58

after.

25:59

it was done.

26:03

Everything you know is a lie. Welcome

26:07

to Citadel. The

26:09

action-packed new series on Prime

26:12

Video. Set in the high-stakes

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world of international

26:15

espionage. Richard

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Madden and Priyanka Chopra Jonas

26:20

star as elite spies who must uncover

26:23

secrets from their past to save

26:25

the future of

26:26

humanity. Citadel

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is a non-stop thrill ride full of twists

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and turns that will keep you guessing

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26:35

finale. Stream

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the entire first season of Citadel

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now. Only

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on Prime Video.

26:49

May 11th, 1960

26:52

was a day just like any other day

26:55

in Ricardo Clement's life. A

26:57

creature of habit, every morning he took

27:00

bus 203 to the Mercedes-Benz

27:02

factory and clocked in for work as

27:04

foreman. After

27:07

a few hours inspecting the assembly

27:09

line, he took lunch at

27:12

12.30pm before returning to his

27:14

afternoon's work. Every day

27:17

he finished his shift in time to catch the 6.15 bus

27:19

home.

27:19

But

27:22

back at Garibaldi Street at 7.30pm,

27:25

a car pulls up and turns off

27:28

its headlights.

27:29

A second parks on the main road, illuminating

27:32

the route.

27:36

And was it rainy day? Only

27:39

distant thunder breaks the silence

27:41

in the vehicles. Two

27:43

men get out of the first

27:45

car and open the hood. A

27:47

few minutes later, bus 203 arrives. But

27:51

no one gets off. In

27:54

the vehicles, the Mossad team can

27:56

hardly believe it. For the

27:58

first time since this time.

27:59

After he started surveilling Eichmann, he

28:02

has broken from his routine. Very

28:07

unusual for someone who is doing everything

28:09

in a very specific way. And

28:12

he wasn't at home either. One

28:15

of the clues was that two or three minutes later, when

28:17

usually Eichmann makes it to the house, the

28:20

lights are less dimmed within the house.

28:22

But all the lights

28:24

are off. The team begin to question what to do.

28:27

At the hood of the first car, Peter Malkin

28:29

leans toward its driver, Raffi Eitarn. Eitarn

28:33

instructs everyone to wait for the

28:35

next bus.

28:36

Which is 30 minutes

28:38

later. The minutes feel

28:40

like hours. Had Eichmann spotted

28:42

them earlier? Is someone watching them now?

28:45

It's problematic because

28:47

leaving doesn't just mean, okay, we'll do it tomorrow.

28:50

Because coming and resetting the whole thing

28:52

for another day in an area where usually

28:54

there aren't too many cars parking in that street, it

28:57

is problematic.

28:58

Eight o'clock passes. The

29:00

second bus hasn't arrived. The

29:02

team grows tense. With every

29:04

minute that passes, they risk being seen.

29:08

Then, in the distance, headlights

29:10

emerge.

29:11

Heading toward them, eventually

29:13

the vehicle comes into view. It's

29:16

bus 203.

29:17

After a brief

29:19

pause at the bus stop, the driver

29:21

pulls away. Revealing two

29:24

people walking in opposite directions. One,

29:27

a man, is walking toward

29:29

them.

29:30

The

29:33

second car radios to Eitarn. The

29:36

man then reaches into his pocket. The

29:39

team was telling my father, look, one

29:42

of his hands are in his pocket. Maybe

29:44

he has a gun.

29:46

And Peter is unarmed. My

29:49

father was always just doing it with

29:51

his own hands. He always said that his

29:53

brain is his weapon, not the pistol.

29:56

But

29:56

Peter has come too far to care.

29:59

My father was just doing it with his own hands. started

30:01

walking towards him. As

30:03

they converge, Peter practices

30:05

his line.

30:06

Uno momentito señor,

30:09

one moment, sir. He felt that that would

30:11

be important as a way for him to

30:13

make sure that Eichmann stops and hesitates

30:15

just for a second.

30:17

A few seconds later, the two

30:19

men are face to face. My

30:22

father has said to him, uno momentito.

30:26

The man looks at Peter, unease

30:28

on his face. He steps back.

30:31

That step back made my father say

30:33

to hell with the señor and basically

30:36

jumped on him.

30:38

Hitting the ground, the two men struggle.

30:41

They fell into a ditch.

30:44

The man tries to scream. My

30:46

father basically was holding his hand

30:48

that was in his pocket with one hand

30:51

and with the other hand was holding his

30:54

mouth.

30:54

The other man at the hood of the car, Moshe

30:57

Tarbo, runs over. He

30:59

and Peter overpower the man and throw

31:01

him into the back of the car. The

31:03

driver guns it.

31:04

From uno momentito

31:06

to the scene being completely empty

31:09

took 25 seconds, almost

31:11

double the time they had planned. In

31:14

the car, Raffi Etan puts blacked

31:17

out goggles over the captive's eyes.

31:19

He was shouting

31:21

for a couple of seconds. One

31:24

of the crew turns and shouts in German, if

31:27

you speak, we will shoot you. Silence,

31:30

once again, envelops the car. A

31:33

few minutes later, the captive breaks

31:35

it momentarily, saying in impeccable

31:38

German, I am resigned

31:40

to my fate.

31:41

In

31:44

this moment, he realized that's

31:46

it.

31:47

On route back to the safe house,

31:50

the two cars change plates twice.

31:52

Once from local to diplomatic

31:55

registrations, then back to a new

31:57

set of local numbers.

31:59

Arriving at the safe house, they bundled the

32:02

man upstairs. The team doctor

32:04

examines him for cyanide capsules,

32:06

a known Nazi suicide strategy, while

32:09

another agent strips him to his underwear.

32:12

Again, the man breaks the silence,

32:15

this time saying,

32:17

no man can be vigilant for 15 years. The

32:21

atmosphere grows heavy. On

32:24

one hand, there's this monster that

32:26

some people wanted to just like kill, but

32:28

at the same time, it also

32:30

was clear that he's just a person.

32:33

Suddenly, you just see a person

32:35

handcuffed, blindfolded, worried

32:38

about his kids and family

32:40

and all that, and it was a

32:42

little bit of a contradicting feeling.

32:45

The doctor checks the man's vitals and

32:48

scans his body for scars.

32:50

Two matched Eichmann's file,

32:52

one below his left eyebrow and

32:54

another above his left elbow.

32:56

So all the signs made

32:58

it look like they have the right person. On

33:01

the underside of his left arm, though, where

33:03

all SS tattoos were inked,

33:06

there's nothing, except

33:08

for some scar tissue. Peter

33:11

dressed the man in pyjamas and handcuffed

33:13

his ankle to the bed frame. Then,

33:15

the

33:16

interrogation begins.

33:17

They

33:20

wanted him to say who he is,

33:22

then he kept saying his Ricardo Clement. The

33:25

team try a different tactic. One

33:27

of the other team members read the SS

33:29

number to him, Adolf Eichmann's SS

33:32

number.

33:32

But it's not his number. He's

33:35

deliberately got it wrong. And

33:37

Eichmann, being very much

33:39

by the book, corrected him, saying,

33:41

no, it's not a seven, it's an eight. That

33:44

was it. This was their man. The

33:47

interrogator finally asks, under

33:49

what name were you born?

33:50

And that's when he said he's Adolf

33:53

Eichmann. The room

33:55

erupted with joy. The

33:58

agents embraced one another like they had... never

34:00

done before. Now trembling,

34:03

Eichmann asks for some wine. The

34:06

next thing right after that was him asking

34:08

them who they are. Israelis,

34:11

the interrogator replies. And

34:13

they had to say it because they wanted to bring

34:16

him to Israel anyway. Not

34:18

only that, they were under orders to

34:20

try and get Eichmann's written consent

34:22

to stand trial in Jerusalem. Israel's

34:26

prime minister, David Ben-Gurion,

34:29

wanted the eventual case to appear as legitimate

34:31

as possible to the watching world. Having

34:34

Eichmann agree to rendition would be a

34:37

huge advantage.

34:38

He cooperated the whole time when

34:40

he was in the safe houses. But the problem

34:43

was when he knew he was going to Israel,

34:45

he wouldn't take at first.

34:48

Eichmann thought he should go to Germany to

34:51

stand trial, where he thought... After

34:54

a few days, though, seeing he

34:56

has no choice, he relents.

35:03

He

35:08

signs the paperwork and not

35:10

too long after that they start

35:12

preparing him to get him out of the country.

35:15

And by then, the team know that Eichmann's

35:18

sons will suspect he's been abducted. And

35:21

the family understood that something is going

35:24

on. They found these glasses. In

35:27

the melee to get him into the car, Eichmann

35:29

had lost his glasses.

35:31

Peter realized a few hours later

35:33

and even went back to the scene,

35:35

but they had already gone.

35:37

They were starting to find

35:39

some clues towards him being

35:41

captured. Eichmann's middle

35:44

son was abroad, leaving the other two

35:46

to track down their father.

35:48

After getting nowhere with the police, locals

35:51

and even much of the former Nazi

35:53

network in Buenos Aires, Nick

35:56

and Dieter Eichmann grew desperate.

35:58

Employing the help of a local police officer, local far-right

36:01

group, the Takawara, they

36:03

start roaming the city's streets brandishing

36:05

pistols.

36:07

One tip-off led them to breaking into a local

36:09

synagogue, only to find nothing and

36:11

no one there.

36:13

Many of the Takawara were sure the

36:15

Israelis were behind it, but all they

36:17

could do was scour the capital.

36:20

And all Peter and the rest of the team could

36:22

do was hide out at the safe house.

36:25

Meanwhile, Mossad chief Isa Harrell

36:28

got the Israeli ambassador to Argentina

36:30

to cable back to HQ one

36:32

line. The typewriter is

36:35

OK.

36:36

Eichmann is caught. On

36:40

May 19, 1960, as part of the 150th anniversary celebrations, the

36:43

first Israeli plane ever to

36:48

land on Argentinian soil taxied

36:51

up to the terminal at Azazah airport.

36:54

Once parked, outstepped Israeli

36:56

minister Abba Eban

36:58

to a jubilant crowd of

37:00

local Jews. His easy

37:02

denina and short speech in perfect

37:05

Spanish betrayed none of the inner tension

37:07

he felt, for he knew that

37:09

Adolf Eichmann was soon to be smuggled

37:12

aboard the same plane. Back

37:14

at the safe house, the team dressed Eichmann

37:17

in an LL. Stewart's uniform.

37:19

I remember again my father telling me that

37:22

once he started wearing the uniform, he

37:25

started to feel confident again. He was asking

37:27

to see himself in the mirror to

37:29

make sure that he looks good.

37:31

Looking at his reflection, Eichmann

37:34

notices something else too. On

37:36

his head he has a Star of David, but

37:38

can't do much about it.

37:40

Until they were over the Atlantic,

37:42

Eichmann was now LL employee

37:45

Mr. Zikroni.

37:47

Shalom Dany had forged a passport

37:49

and other documents, while the team

37:51

doctor prepared an anaesthetic and

37:53

mildly sedated the captive.

37:56

Enough so that he can still walk,

37:59

but without being able to. to suddenly

38:01

do something that is not per

38:03

plan. So that his lethargic

38:06

appearance added up, Danny had

38:08

even forged a medical certificate from a local

38:10

hospital. It stated that crew

38:12

member Zikroni had suffered a head injury,

38:15

but was now cleared to fly. Final

38:18

preparations made, the crew loaded

38:20

him into the car and set off. Isha

38:23

Harel meanwhile was at a restaurant

38:25

in the airport terminal to coordinate

38:27

operations.

38:31

At 11pm, the team poured

38:33

into the airport parking lot, where

38:35

Harel came out to greet them. Satisfied,

38:39

he ordered them to drive to the airport maintenance

38:42

area. Through various LL

38:44

contacts, Harel had organised for

38:46

the crew to pass through uninterrupted and

38:49

onto the awaiting plane.

38:50

And then they embarked the plane

38:53

as part of the crew. By this point,

38:55

the capture team has split up.

38:57

Peter and several others are watching from the

39:00

terminal.

39:00

They all took their own direction

39:03

to find a way to get out of the country. In

39:06

a window seat of the first class cabin, Adolf

39:08

Eichmann sat covered by a blanket.

39:12

At five minutes past midnight, May 21st, the

39:15

plane accelerated down the runway and

39:17

took flight.

39:22

25 minutes later, the telephone

39:25

rang on the desk of a Brazilian secret service

39:27

agent. On the other end was

39:30

a former SS officer in Argentina.

39:33

We must intercept the LL plane shortly

39:36

due to land at Hasifi Airport,

39:38

he said.

39:40

The SS officer had a tip-off from

39:42

Eichmann's son, Nick, who had learned

39:44

through his search party that an Israeli

39:47

passenger plane had just departed Buenos

39:49

Aires. It couldn't be

39:51

a coincidence, he thought.

39:54

On board, though, the crew had

39:56

no need to worry. Issa

39:58

Harelle had personally...

39:59

ordered the pilot to ignore their scheduled

40:02

stop at Hisife, and instead

40:04

head straight over the Atlantic,

40:07

a feat unmatched by most

40:09

aircraft in 1960.

40:11

It was like game

40:13

over. In

40:17

the

40:17

early afternoon of May 23rd in

40:20

central Cologne, Germany, Fritz

40:22

Bauer sits down for lunch. Even

40:25

though he was the prosecutor that had lit

40:27

the flame under the Mossad operation,

40:29

he has still heard nothing. A

40:32

few minutes later, however, the man who has

40:34

asked to see him arrives. Leaning

40:37

toward him, the man tells Bauer

40:40

the news. Eichmann is

40:42

in prison in Israel. Bauer

40:45

leaps from his seat, tears

40:47

welling in his

40:47

eyes, and kisses the man on

40:50

both cheeks.

40:51

After 15 years, the

40:53

man he wanted caught more than any

40:55

other will

40:56

finally answer

40:58

for what he has done.

41:03

We think of him as a

41:05

hero, you know, the opposite of a

41:07

victim. He actually tried to do something about

41:09

justice.

41:11

This is Karen Hirsch again, a descendant

41:13

of Bauer's.

41:14

It's not great to think

41:16

that, you know, you've had a relative

41:19

who's been caught up in this huge

41:21

machinery and couldn't fight back

41:24

for themselves. So it did

41:26

change the narrative greatly for

41:28

all of the immediate family

41:31

that we had. An attorney went

41:33

about it legally and managed

41:35

to get his parcel of justice

41:38

against people who had done horrible

41:41

things and mentionable things. There

41:43

was a full circle then. You know, it wasn't

41:45

something that went unanswered.

41:47

Later, that same day,

41:49

Prime Minister David Ben-Gurion announces

41:52

to the Israeli parliament and to

41:54

the world...

41:59

be placed on trial. When

42:03

you see what the Mossad made it was so professional,

42:05

so perfect, it couldn't fail it, it could

42:07

have been not so nice, not so

42:10

clean. It was so, so

42:12

clean at the end.

42:14

On December 15th 1961,

42:17

after a four-month televised trial,

42:20

Adolph Eichmann rose from a seat

42:23

enveloped by bulletproof glass

42:26

in the district court of Jerusalem to

42:28

hear the verdict.

42:30

He was declared guilty on all

42:32

counts and sentenced to death.

42:35

Visited by a Canadian Protestant

42:38

missionary in his cell,

42:40

Eichmann said, I did

42:42

nothing wrong, I have no regrets.

42:45

Argentinian writer Ariel Magnus

42:48

again.

42:49

No remorse, what he

42:51

really thought was we killed six

42:54

million and we should have killed 10

42:56

millions, that was our job, we didn't do

42:59

the job perfectly and that's

43:01

the only thing I didn't accomplish.

43:03

Just before midnight on May 31st,

43:06

Eichmann was escorted out of his cell, down

43:09

the corridor and into another room. There

43:12

they placed him on a platform and tied

43:15

his legs together.

43:16

Before him he saw a line of men,

43:19

journalists, guards, policemen.

43:22

But there

43:23

was another face there also,

43:25

one he now knew,

43:27

Rafi Etan,

43:29

commander of operation finale.

43:32

Etan had interrogated Eichmann

43:34

in prison on the SS, how

43:37

it had operated

43:38

and who else was at large.

43:40

But now, with

43:42

the noose placed around his neck,

43:44

he had only one thing to say to

43:46

Etan,

43:48

I hope very much that it will be your turn

43:50

soon after mine.

43:53

Then

43:53

he said, Long live Germany,

43:56

long live Austria and long live Argentina.

43:58

A

44:01

guard yelled action. The floor

44:04

under Eichmann's feet dropped away. Ten

44:07

feet below, he snapped to

44:09

a halt.

44:11

A minute later, a doctor inspected

44:13

the swaying

44:14

body and declared him officially dead. To

44:17

this day, it is the only capital

44:20

punishment in Israel's history.

44:24

Over years afterward,

44:26

Peter Malkin's mother asked

44:28

if he was involved in Operation Finale.

44:32

He denied any knowledge of the mission. Nothing

44:35

was ever said by my father, partly

44:38

because for many years it was a secret. And even when

44:40

it wasn't a secret, he was not a man

44:42

of many words.

44:44

But then, in 1967,

44:47

he got a phone call. His mother

44:50

was near the end. Rushing

44:52

to the hospital, he knelt at her bedside.

44:55

And she was borderline

44:57

in karma. He kept telling her, Ima,

45:00

Ima, Ima, and was holding

45:02

her hand. And she didn't react

45:04

or respond to anything. And

45:07

then he basically

45:09

told her, I captured

45:12

Adolf Eichmann. And he had to say it a few

45:14

times. And at some point he felt

45:17

her hand movement and

45:19

kind of like shaking his hand for

45:22

a few seconds. Like, as

45:24

a sign that she heard him.

45:27

And she died the same day within an hour

45:29

or two after that. I remember

45:32

that as a story that was very impactful

45:34

for my father as well.

45:36

And the gloves that Peter wore during

45:38

the capture, Omer remembers

45:40

them being in the house when he was growing up.

45:43

I have a sculpture of the gloves. The gloves are

45:45

in a museum in Israel these days. Many

45:48

years later, the unique life

45:51

of a true spy was revealed

45:53

to Omer when he asked his father

45:55

about Eichmann's trial.

45:58

My father came there two or three times. three times

46:00

no

46:01

VIP treatment. You know, there was

46:03

long lines to be part of the

46:05

crowd inside the courtroom. This is

46:08

how he always was. He was always undercover

46:10

and no one knew who he is. And I remember he's telling

46:13

me that it's funny, he was in Israel

46:15

in his own country among other

46:17

citizens. And the only person he

46:19

knew in the room was Adolph Eichmann,

46:21

no one else.

46:26

I'm Sofia Di Martino. Next

46:28

time on True Spies, meet

46:31

the American student who became an Israeli

46:33

spy behind the Iron Curtain.

46:38

It's the summer of 1971. In

46:42

Moscow, a young American emerges

46:44

from the lobby of his hotel.

46:46

The Metropole is an old, fabulous

46:48

hotel across from the Bolshoi

46:51

Theater. He makes his way into the

46:53

city. He has an appointment to make.

46:55

You walk from the Metropole

46:58

to Red Square. From Red Square, you walk

47:00

here. Eventually, his eyes

47:02

alight on his destination, an

47:05

apartment, the home of an

47:07

important

47:08

man. I knocked on his door,

47:11

and suddenly he said something to me in Russian.

47:14

I said to him, I don't speak Russian. And I

47:16

believe if my recollection was correct, he

47:18

said something in Hebrew immediately

47:20

thereafter. I remember he opened

47:22

the door, but to open the door, he had to unlock

47:25

about five locks and bolts,

47:27

and he ushered me into his

47:30

apartment.

47:32

True Spies, with me,

47:34

Sofia Di Martino. Search

47:36

for True Spies wherever you get your

47:38

podcasts. I'm

47:41

Hayley Atwell. I'm Vanessa Kirby. I'm

47:43

Sofia Di Martino, and this is

47:45

True Spies.

47:46

And that was a signal for me to

47:48

run. Spying only requires two

47:50

people to be able to communicate. Then I saw

47:52

that he had been shot in the

47:55

head.

47:59

I'm Rory Bremner,

48:01

comedian, mimics, spy enthusiast, and

48:03

professional liar. From the Spyscape Podcast

48:06

Network, this is The Spying

48:08

Game.

48:09

Introducing The Resume

48:11

of Files, starring me, Jessica

48:14

Brown-Finley. The Resume of Files

48:16

is available exclusively on Spyscape

48:18

Plus, along with every episode from

48:21

the Spyscape Podcast Network, ad-free

48:24

at Apple Podcasts.

48:28

The stories

48:30

expressed in this podcast are those of the subject. These

48:33

stories are told from their perspective, and

48:35

their authenticity should be assessed on a case-by-case

48:38

basis.

48:58

Stream

49:00

the entire first season of

49:02

Citadel now.