Speaker 1: Diversion podcasts. A note this episode contains descriptions of graphic
Speaker 1: violence listener's discretion as advised judgment. Day had arrived February
Speaker 1: in sal Paolo. Herbert Sukers was getting ready to board
Speaker 1: his flight, which left around seven am. The trip to
Speaker 1: Mount of the Dao would take about two and a
Speaker 1: half hours. He put on a dress shirt, a light
Speaker 1: colored suit and a tie. I could just picture it.
Speaker 1: Although Zookers was rarely photographed wearing a suit, it was
Speaker 1: as if he was going to his first day on
Speaker 1: a job, dressing for success. He said goodbye to his family.
Speaker 1: His flight was Air France Flight three. He got to
Speaker 1: the airport early and sat in the departure lounge. He
Speaker 1: must have been excited worried too. It was a big
Speaker 1: deal for him, this whole thing. He wanted a different
Speaker 1: sort of life. He knew that at sixty four he
Speaker 1: wouldn't get many more chances, so he was taking a risk,
Speaker 1: a big risk that Anton Kunzla was on the level.
Speaker 1: But even in taking a risk, he needed a little insurance.
Speaker 1: So underneath the suit was his nine millimeter Baretta. You
Speaker 1: could still carry a gun on a commercial flight. It
Speaker 1: wasn't until the late sixties, when there was a rash
Speaker 1: of hijackings in the US, mostly by radicals who wanted
Speaker 1: to go to Cuba, that the policy changed. Sukers carried
Speaker 1: his gun in a leather holster as he boarded the
Speaker 1: plane and headed off into what he must have imagined
Speaker 1: was his new life. Yeah, I'm Stephen Talty and this
Speaker 1: is good. Assassin's hunting the butcher. So it's the first
Speaker 1: file was to find and not been looking forward, while
Speaker 1: the second part was the minor Nazi and killing. We
Speaker 1: must thwart this shameful forces, the end of a trayal
Speaker 1: and blood and horror, the end of a man whose
Speaker 1: name will be written in inform episode nine Judgment Day.
Speaker 1: The men in them Sod Kill Team were spread out
Speaker 1: in various hotels across Montevideo, Uruguay. They woke up early
Speaker 1: on that February morning and began to get ready for
Speaker 1: the Butcher's arrival. Neo had the first assignment. He had
Speaker 1: to go to the airport and pick up Suckers. He
Speaker 1: had to check Sukers into the hotel and confirmed their
Speaker 1: seats on their flights to Chile. He had to convince
Speaker 1: the butcher. They had a busy day ahead, which would
Speaker 1: include driving around the city looking at properties. They also
Speaker 1: was stopped by Cassa Kubertini for a look at the
Speaker 1: company's temporary headquarters, who was a full schedule. Neo didn't
Speaker 1: want to give suckers much time to think. The agent
Speaker 1: got up, showered and took librium. Mio had a condition.
Speaker 1: He sweat a lot, and because he was concerned the
Speaker 1: paranoid sukers might take his sweating as a sign of nervousness,
Speaker 1: Mio had planned ahead. He'd gone to a drug store
Speaker 1: back in Paris and asked the pharmacist to recommend something.
Speaker 1: Demand prescribed an anti anxiety drug called librium, and when
Speaker 1: Mio had tested it, he found it cured his problem.
Speaker 1: So Mio took his librium. Then he dressed and took
Speaker 1: the elevator down to the lobby. As he passed by
Speaker 1: the news stand, the headline on one of the papers
Speaker 1: they I read Bond Government will discuss tomorrow the investigation
Speaker 1: of Nazi crimes. The story covered a meeting about the
Speaker 1: amnesty debate coming up in the German parliament. The amnesty
Speaker 1: was getting more and more international attention. In the U S.
Speaker 1: The c P had added its name to Simon Enthal's letter,
Speaker 1: pressure was building both for the amnesty and against it.
Speaker 1: At one point, politicians in Germany tried to avoid a crisis.
Speaker 1: Pro amnesty legislators made an offer to the anti amnesty forces.
Speaker 1: They would change the statute if ordinary s s men
Speaker 1: would kill during the war were given an amnesty. To some,
Speaker 1: it wasn't such a crazy idea. Many countries gave soldiers
Speaker 1: a free pass for crimes that were committed on the
Speaker 1: battlefield and sometimes off the battlefield. It had been done before.
Speaker 1: The amnesty opponents agreed to consider the offer, but when
Speaker 1: they read the actual text of the proposed statute, they
Speaker 1: were shocked. It wasn't just ordinary soldiers that would go free.
Speaker 1: It was quote all perpetrators within the Nationalist Socialist administrative
Speaker 1: machinery unquote. Who that included wasn't spelled out exactly, but
Speaker 1: it sounded like every Nazi, every camp commander, every criminal,
Speaker 1: every killer, like the butcher free forever. They rejected the deal.
Speaker 1: There were other stories coming out of Germany too, Some
Speaker 1: of them were kind of strange. One journalist had written
Speaker 1: to the Justice Minister. Something had occurred to this journalist.
Speaker 1: Adolph Hitler had never been indict did for ordering the
Speaker 1: killing of six million Jews. What if he'd survived the
Speaker 1: bunker where he'd supposedly committed suicide. What if his death
Speaker 1: was a fake? Some people believed that he was alive
Speaker 1: and well and living out his life and hiding. So
Speaker 1: the journalists asked the Justice minister a question, if the
Speaker 1: amnesty goes into effect, could Hitler walk down at Berlin
Speaker 1: Street without being arrested. The Justice Ministry, well, they kind
Speaker 1: of freaked out. They didn't know the answer to that question.
Speaker 1: They found some war crimes experts and asked them, could
Speaker 1: Hitler face any jail time. The answer was yes and no.
Speaker 1: The former Nazi leader could be charged with political crimes,
Speaker 1: with abusing the power of the state, that was true,
Speaker 1: but he couldn't be charged with his main crime, murder.
Speaker 1: That was disturbing. So the German courts did something about it.
Speaker 1: Twenty years after the fur had supposedly died, they opened
Speaker 1: proceeding against him. They even requested an arrest warrant in
Speaker 1: his name. It made newspapers all over the world. The
Speaker 1: Atlanta Journal Constitution reported, if Adolf Hitler returns from the dead,
Speaker 1: you will have to answer for his crimes. It was
Speaker 1: kind of a novelty story. Hitler was dead, who really
Speaker 1: cared what he was charged with. But the incident did
Speaker 1: make a point. There were hundreds, maybe thousands of killers
Speaker 1: out there who didn't have an arrest warrant in their name.
Speaker 1: If the amnesty passed, Hitler could still be thrown in
Speaker 1: prison with the men who killed in his name, they
Speaker 1: would be untouchable by now. Thousands of people around the
Speaker 1: world that marched against Germany's planned amnesty in Atlanta, Boston, Chicago,
Speaker 1: New Orleans, Washington, Tel Aviv, in Paris, they were protests.
Speaker 1: A journalist interviewed one of the marchers in Toronto. She
Speaker 1: told him, I am the only survivor of Bergen Belson,
Speaker 1: of my entire family. I am so lonely without my relatives.
Speaker 1: The full debate in the German Parliament was scheduled from
Speaker 1: March tenth, two and a half weeks away. The MISSAD
Speaker 1: team was cutting things close. Maybe they thought the fresher
Speaker 1: Zuker's crimes were the minds of German legislators, the better
Speaker 1: it was for their cause. Maybe it just took this
Speaker 1: long to get the butcher into position, but they knew
Speaker 1: they didn't have a lot of time to mount another
Speaker 1: mission if things went wrong. Neia was composed with tense.
Speaker 1: He wrote later, an exciting chapter in my life was
Speaker 1: about to come to an end. Six months of a
Speaker 1: constant war of wits, tension and uncertainty, and the tireless
Speaker 1: efforts invested in order to bring us to this moment.
Speaker 1: He thought about his parents, but he was focused on
Speaker 1: the mission. Your Reeve was all up early that morning.
Speaker 1: He wanted to get a look at Suker's to see
Speaker 1: what he was wearing. That way, he could identify him
Speaker 1: on site so there'd be no mistakes. Later in the day,
Speaker 1: as Mio got into his rented VW Beetle, your Reef
Speaker 1: was already driving to the airport. He would stand in
Speaker 1: the visitors gallery with the families and friends of passengers
Speaker 1: arriving on different flights. Your Reef would hang out with
Speaker 1: them and hope to get a look at the butcher.
Speaker 1: When he finally showed up, sudep a meat at Kafir,
Speaker 1: had their breakfast, then headed to Kassa Kupertini. They had
Speaker 1: perhaps the most difficult job waiting. The plan was for
Speaker 1: Meo to lead the butcher into the house. The killed.
Speaker 1: Team would rush and immobilize him. Then the verdict would
Speaker 1: be read out. We planned a very brief court martial
Speaker 1: and victory intended to read the charges to him. Is
Speaker 1: the name of the Selti thousand Jews from Riga and Latvia, children, women,
Speaker 1: the elderly, and men who had been mounted by him
Speaker 1: over twenty years ago. We wanted him to know it's
Speaker 1: this entire long affair with Anton Kunzl had been designed
Speaker 1: only to set the stage for the moment of revenge.
Speaker 1: It's the name of his innocent victims. And then we
Speaker 1: were going to put a bullet in his head. After
Speaker 1: Dukers was dead, they would put him in the leather
Speaker 1: trunk and they would leave a printed version of the
Speaker 1: verdict with the body to explain why the assassination had
Speaker 1: been carried out. The world would know the truth about
Speaker 1: Herbert Sukers and men like him. There was one line
Speaker 1: in the verdict that I thought was especially interesting. The
Speaker 1: entire long affair had been designed only to set the
Speaker 1: stage for the moment of revenge. It was clear that
Speaker 1: the team wanted Zukers to know that he'd been tricked
Speaker 1: and betrayed by Anton kunz La, a man who didn't
Speaker 1: really exist. I wondered why. Maybe it was because Zukers
Speaker 1: himself had betrayed many of his Jewish friends and acquaintances
Speaker 1: in Riga. He drank with them before the war and
Speaker 1: made them believe he was their friend, and then he
Speaker 1: had murdered them. Many survivors talked about how this double
Speaker 1: cross made the war years even more painful for them. Now,
Speaker 1: the Massad team wanted to re enact that betrayal with
Speaker 1: the butcher himself. He wouldn't just be executed, he would
Speaker 1: be executed in the same way that the Jews of
Speaker 1: Latvia had gone to their deaths. Mio got to the
Speaker 1: airport early and went to the visitors gallery. He looked
Speaker 1: at the arrival's board. Suckers flight was listed on time.
Speaker 1: He inspected the people around him. He spotted your Reeve.
Speaker 1: His face turned away from me. They didn't want anyone
Speaker 1: to see that they knew each other. They didn't even
Speaker 1: exchange a glance. At around nine thirty am, Air France
Speaker 1: flight eighty three touchdown. The airplane stairs were pushed to
Speaker 1: the door and passengers began coming out. Neo could see
Speaker 1: them clearly. Finally, Zookers emerged. He spotted Mio held up
Speaker 1: one hand making a V for victory sign. He was
Speaker 1: smiling from ear to ear. Mio smiled back. The butcher
Speaker 1: seemed to be in a good mood. As Zukers waved
Speaker 1: to him. Neo could see the handgun that he was
Speaker 1: carrying in the shoulder holster. Mio knew he usually liked
Speaker 1: to travel with a gun, but now it was confirmed.
Speaker 1: This meant that if the team failed to bring Zukers down,
Speaker 1: he might be able to wound or kill several of
Speaker 1: its members. Neo felt his anxiety creep up your reeve.
Speaker 1: Standing among the families, spotted Zukers too. He recognized him
Speaker 1: from the photographs he studied in Paris. He memorized what
Speaker 1: the pitcher was wearing, then turned and slipped away from
Speaker 1: the crowd. He headed back to the parking lot. We
Speaker 1: jumped in his car and drove over to Cassa Kuppertini. Meanwhile,
Speaker 1: Suckers found me a waiting for him. The two shook hands.
Speaker 1: Suckers was smiling. He passed on greetings from his wife
Speaker 1: and children, and he asked me to catch him up
Speaker 1: on our plans. They told him, believe me only the best,
Speaker 1: I told him. We have great plans and you're part
Speaker 1: of The two walked to the VW and headed towards
Speaker 1: the city. Neo drove as naturally as possible, chatting with
Speaker 1: Sukers watching his pedometer, he made sure to stay below
Speaker 1: the speed limit. When Meo parked in front of the
Speaker 1: Victoria Plaza hotel, Suckers took his suit case and went
Speaker 1: to check in. He had room seventeen nineteen. When he
Speaker 1: came back down from dropping off his luggage, he was happy.
Speaker 1: He remarked to Meo, what a beautiful room. They went
Speaker 1: to the airline office. Nea wanted to confirm their flight
Speaker 1: from Uruguay to Chile. Knowing that they had tikes out
Speaker 1: of Uruguay would help convince Sukers that nothing out of
Speaker 1: the ordinary was going to happen. Why wouldn't assassins spend
Speaker 1: money on plane tickets they weren't going to use. The
Speaker 1: two went to the office. As Mio confirmed the tickets,
Speaker 1: he spoke loud enough for Zukers to hear. Later on,
Speaker 1: during the investigation of the whole matter, the clerk said
Speaker 1: that he thought that two men were friends. He was
Speaker 1: acting was pretty good. After they had the tickets, Neo
Speaker 1: and Sukers went to meet with a real estate agent.
Speaker 1: They toured a few houses looking for deals for Kunzla's company.
Speaker 1: Every time they visited a house, Meal made sure to
Speaker 1: enter first. Then the butcher followed him in one last
Speaker 1: bit of conditioning before they headed to Cassa Kubertini. Hey,
Speaker 1: this is Stephen Talty, the host of this podcast, Good
Speaker 1: Assassin's Hunting the Butcher. This podcast project came out of
Speaker 1: my work on a related book called The Good Assassin.
Speaker 1: If you want to explore other parts of this story,
Speaker 1: check it out. It's not just a book version of
Speaker 1: the podcast. I spend time on different aspects of the mission.
Speaker 1: There are chapters diving into World War two history that
Speaker 1: we didn't cover in the podcast, and the book works
Speaker 1: as a kind of a companion to the listening experience.
Speaker 1: You can purchase a copy of The Good Assassin on Amazon,
Speaker 1: Apple Books, and on bookshop dot org. Thanks After they'd
Speaker 1: visited a few properties, Neio looked down at the fuel
Speaker 1: gage was getting low. He pointed this out to Suckers
Speaker 1: and they pulled into a nearby gas station. Meo had
Speaker 1: let the fuel run down on purpose. Across the street
Speaker 1: from the gas station, a red car was Parked inside
Speaker 1: the car was the local Jewish man from the Foreign
Speaker 1: Service that your Reeve had found to act as a lookout.
Speaker 1: He watches Meo filled the tank, then took off. He
Speaker 1: would report back to the kill team that the two
Speaker 1: men were on schedule. Neo and Sukers looked at a
Speaker 1: few more houses. Then Mio told the real estate agent
Speaker 1: that they think about it. He'd call them tomorrow let
Speaker 1: them know about their decision. There's another psychological cue to zookers.
Speaker 1: We have plans for tomorrow. We have a flight to Chile.
Speaker 1: Nothing bad is going to happen. It was about noon
Speaker 1: at this point. After they left the real estate agent,
Speaker 1: Neo and Sukers got back in the car. Neo had
Speaker 1: a sudden idea. The house he'd runted as the headquarters
Speaker 1: was close by. Why didn't they go and have a look.
Speaker 1: It wasn't up to his usual standards, but he wanted
Speaker 1: Sukers to see it. The butcher agreed. They headed toward
Speaker 1: the ocean, drove through the Crossco neighborhood, and, as Fernando
Speaker 1: but Zoni tells us, into Shangri Law. It was an
Speaker 1: ordinary tuesday, not too much traffic, pedestrians strolling by, people
Speaker 1: going to lunch at the casa. The kill team had
Speaker 1: undressed down to their underwear. If MEO's reports had been correct,
Speaker 1: the encounter would be bloody, and they didn't want the
Speaker 1: evidence of a struggle on their clothes. They waited in
Speaker 1: the hot, humid room, listening to the workers banter next
Speaker 1: door and the noise of their tools. They checked their watches.
Speaker 1: Neo and Sukers reached the Cassa Kupertini. As Mio pulled
Speaker 1: into the driveway, he saw the four or five men
Speaker 1: working on the house next door. They might hear what
Speaker 1: was about to happen, but there was no turning back.
Speaker 1: Now the killed team was inside. The target was here.
Speaker 1: Now all Meo had to do was get him into
Speaker 1: the house. Here we are, this is the house. Meo
Speaker 1: stopped the car, put it in park, cut the engine.
Speaker 1: Before Zukers could say anything, me was out of the
Speaker 1: car and walking towards the front door. This is it,
Speaker 1: I thought, this is the moment of truth. He must
Speaker 1: follow me. Now. From the corner of my eye, I
Speaker 1: could see Tukers get out of the car, still walking.
Speaker 1: I had already pulled the house keys out of my pocket.
Speaker 1: Tuckers was about ten or twelve feet behind me. Meal
Speaker 1: put the key in the lock, turned it, grabbed a handle,
Speaker 1: and pushed the door in. It was kind of dark inside,
Speaker 1: no lights on. The four Massad members were lined up
Speaker 1: on either side of the door. Neil gave them a
Speaker 1: quick glance, then positioned himself behind the open door. The
Speaker 1: men listened. They could hear Sucre's footsteps as he approached
Speaker 1: the house. Then suddenly the butcher was coming through the door.
Speaker 1: The change from bright sunshine to semi darkness blinded him
Speaker 1: for split second. That's when Neo slammed the door shut
Speaker 1: behind him and they killed team pounced. Three of the
Speaker 1: men grabbed at Sucre's arms to immobilize him. The last one,
Speaker 1: We're not sure who it was, dashed behind him, preparing
Speaker 1: to execute the Cropmaga maneuver a single downward blow that
Speaker 1: would drop the butcher to his knees, but immediately all
Speaker 1: hell broke loose. Saucers pushed the men away and started shouting.
Speaker 1: The agent behind him couldn't give the knockout blow. Saucers
Speaker 1: was too quick. He was already turning to run back
Speaker 1: out of the house. He shook off the Massad agents,
Speaker 1: thrashing at them with his arms. Sucres worst nightmare had
Speaker 1: come true. He realized immediately he had walked into a trap.
Speaker 1: But me, it was a nightmare, the thing he'd fear
Speaker 1: the most, it was also coming true. The butcher was
Speaker 1: attacking the Massad agents and he was winning. He fought
Speaker 1: like a violent and wounded animal. He freed one hand,
Speaker 1: grabbed the door handle and tried to pull it open.
Speaker 1: We leaned against the door, trying to push him into
Speaker 1: the center of the room. The fear of death gave
Speaker 1: him incredible strength. Sucers was screaming, bellowing. He pulled back
Speaker 1: on the door handle that came ripping out of the wood.
Speaker 1: He seemed to have this superhuman strength. The others grabbed
Speaker 1: of his arms, his throat. They tried to beat him
Speaker 1: to the ground, but nothing worked. In the chaos, knew
Speaker 1: heard a voice. The butcher was shouting. Something was in German.
Speaker 1: Let me speak, let me speak. Zukers must have known
Speaker 1: why he was being ambushed. Clearly these were Jewish agents
Speaker 1: and he wanted to talk to them. This I found fascinating.
Speaker 1: What was the butcher going to say? Did he think
Speaker 1: he had an explanation for thirty murders. What could he
Speaker 1: possibly have said? They would have calmed these avengers and
Speaker 1: caused them to stop the mission. It didn't matter. Massad
Speaker 1: agents didn't want to listen, and the fight went on.
Speaker 1: The men wrestled with each other in a fury. In
Speaker 1: the melee, Zuker's glasses dropped to the floor, and then
Speaker 1: something really bad. Sucres was, of course armed. Epistol wasn't
Speaker 1: the leather holster. It was the baretta that he'd shown
Speaker 1: me a month before when he visited Suker's home. Now,
Speaker 1: Zukers shoved one of the Massad men away and reached
Speaker 1: for the gun. The men rushed at Sukers. Mio had
Speaker 1: joined in by now The team was getting desperate. You
Speaker 1: reef grabbed at the butcher's face. He was trying to
Speaker 1: get his hand over Zuker's mouth to stop him from
Speaker 1: screaming and alerting the workers next door, but his index
Speaker 1: finger slipped into Suker's mouth. The putcher immediately clamped down
Speaker 1: and bit off the tip of his finger. The reef
Speaker 1: snatched his hand away, screaming and pain. They were all
Speaker 1: gasping now, trying to bring the butcher down. But then
Speaker 1: one of the team members we don't know who spotted
Speaker 1: something lying on the floor. It was a hammer that
Speaker 1: had been left behind after some recent worked on the house.
Speaker 1: He snatched it up, turned towards Suker's and brought the
Speaker 1: hammer down on his head. Blood went everywhere, some even
Speaker 1: spurted up on the ceiling. Investigators would later find it there.
Speaker 1: Zuker's was badly wounded, his skull was fractured, blood pouring
Speaker 1: down his face, and yet he still kept fighting. It
Speaker 1: was almost hard to believe how tough he was. Finally,
Speaker 1: one of them assad men grabbed his gun from the
Speaker 1: pile of clothes. He came up to Zookers, whose face
Speaker 1: was partially hidden by the blood flowing over it, and
Speaker 1: fired two bullets into his head. Zookers collapsed to the
Speaker 1: floor and lay still. The only sound in the room
Speaker 1: was from your reeve. He was moaning in pain, holding
Speaker 1: his wounded hand. They needed to get it taken care of,
Speaker 1: but first they had some business to attend to. The
Speaker 1: men stood there listening for a moment. They didn't hear
Speaker 1: any police sirens, and they could hear the voices of
Speaker 1: the workers next door. The workers didn't seem to be anxious.
Speaker 1: They were talking normally, so it seemed that nobody had
Speaker 1: heard the shots. Sude went to the backyard and turned
Speaker 1: on the hose. One by one, the men went out
Speaker 1: to wash the blood off. Then they put their clothes
Speaker 1: on and went back to Zookers. His shirt was so
Speaker 1: with blood. They went through his pockets and found his passport.
Speaker 1: They took the bretta, then dragged the leather trunk out
Speaker 1: of another room lifted Sucker's body into it. When the
Speaker 1: body was inside, Massadman placed two pieces of paper inside
Speaker 1: a folder on top of the body. The first was
Speaker 1: a verdict considering the gravity of the crimes of which
Speaker 1: Herbert Suckers is accused, notably his personal responsibility and the
Speaker 1: murder of thirty thousand men, women and children, And considering
Speaker 1: the terrible cruelty shown by Herbert Suckers and carrying out
Speaker 1: his crimes, we condemned, they said, Suckers to death. Give
Speaker 1: us executed on February twenty third. It was signed those
Speaker 1: who will never forget. They late a second document inside
Speaker 1: the folder. Bio never mentioned it. He talked about the verdict,
Speaker 1: but not this other piece of paper. I was able
Speaker 1: to find out what it was through police and newspaper reports.
Speaker 1: It was from the Nuremberg trials, where the leaders of
Speaker 1: the Nazi machine were put on trial by the Allies
Speaker 1: right after the war. The page was part of the
Speaker 1: testimony of a man who saw a large group of
Speaker 1: Jews being murdered in the Ukraine. The British Chief Prosecutor,
Speaker 1: Sir Hartley Shawcross read this testimony in front of Nazi
Speaker 1: war criminals sitting in the defendant's box, and it's haunting
Speaker 1: to hear even today without screaming, all weeping. These people, undressed,
Speaker 1: stowed around in family a groups, gifted each other, said farewells,
Speaker 1: and waited put a side from another ss man who
Speaker 1: stood near the pit, also with a whip in his hand.
Speaker 1: During the fifteen minutes that I stood near, I heard
Speaker 1: no complaint or flee for mercy. I watched a family
Speaker 1: of about eight persons, a man and a woman, both
Speaker 1: about fifty, with their children of about one, eight ten
Speaker 1: and two grown up daughters for about twenty or twenty four.
Speaker 1: An old woman with snow white hair was holding the
Speaker 1: one year old child in her arms and singing to
Speaker 1: it and tickling it. The child was toying with delight.
Speaker 1: The couple were looking on with tears in their eyes.
Speaker 1: The father was holding the hand of a boy about
Speaker 1: ten years old and speaking to him something. The boy
Speaker 1: was fighting his tears. The are the pointed to the sky,
Speaker 1: stroked his head, and the same to explain something to
Speaker 1: the board. A few moments later, the family was dead.
Speaker 1: Why did me on the others include this account, He
Speaker 1: never said, but I think it was placed there because
Speaker 1: it was about the victims. They were the real reason
Speaker 1: that me on the other agents were inside Cassa Kopertini
Speaker 1: on February when the news about Suckers went out into
Speaker 1: the world. Massad didn't want the mission to be just
Speaker 1: about the butcher. They wanted the murder Jews to be
Speaker 1: remembered too, at least that's my guess. With the verdict
Speaker 1: red and the trunk closed, the men were almost done.
Speaker 1: You reeve told the team, we lean and we've finish.
Speaker 1: So they wiped down the walls and tried to make
Speaker 1: sure they hadn't left any clues behind. Then they left.
Speaker 1: Neo dropped off his car on the street near the hotel,
Speaker 1: and the others did the same with their rentals. They
Speaker 1: took care of some other small details and then they
Speaker 1: met at a cafe in downtown Montepdeo. There they had
Speaker 1: a drink. Weaver at one with ourselves, and thou did
Speaker 1: if we felt proud of having the privilege taking part
Speaker 1: is this opimasion. After they finished their drinks, the men
Speaker 1: got up and left the cafe. One by one. They
Speaker 1: took two separate flights to Buenos Aires, sitting apart from
Speaker 1: each other. By the end of the day they were
Speaker 1: all out of Uruguay. Neo had one thing left to
Speaker 1: do in South America. He wrote a letter to the
Speaker 1: butcher's family to throw them off the trail. He addressed
Speaker 1: the letter to Zucres himself as if he didn't know
Speaker 1: the man was dead. In it, he said that he'd
Speaker 1: found out they've been followed in Uruguay by two strangers.
Speaker 1: Mia wrote that he fled to Chile in order to
Speaker 1: get away from these mysterious people. He implied that he
Speaker 1: was a Nazi war criminal himself, that he and Suckers
Speaker 1: had escaped some kind of kidnapping attempt. He sent the
Speaker 1: letter in a large envelope to a friend in Chile,
Speaker 1: who put stamps on it and mailed it to Suckers
Speaker 1: family in sal Paulo. It would buy the team some
Speaker 1: time to get back to Europe to get rid of
Speaker 1: their cover identities. The family would think that Sucres was
Speaker 1: still in Uruguay and that there was no need to
Speaker 1: call the police In Buenos Aires. Famisade agents boarded their
Speaker 1: flights back to France. When he arrived in Paris, Nio
Speaker 1: went to a branch of the bank he'd opened in
Speaker 1: the count at under the name of Anton Kunsla. He
Speaker 1: withdrew the money and closed the account. He got rid
Speaker 1: of the passport and anything that connected him with the
Speaker 1: Austrian businessman. The others did the same with their documents.
Speaker 1: It was over. The mission had been a success. Now
Speaker 1: they waited for the story to hit the headlines. By
Speaker 1: now it was early March, the debate about the Statute
Speaker 1: of Limitations was a week away. Massad was hoping that
Speaker 1: the body would be discovered and that stories about the
Speaker 1: butcher and his terrible crimes would run in newspapers and
Speaker 1: on TV channels all over the world. Soon, Meo and
Speaker 1: the others were now living ordinary lives in Paris. They
Speaker 1: went to breakfast, went to the movies, socialized with their friends.
Speaker 1: But every morning they bought newspapers and scanned them for
Speaker 1: the news. A couple of days passed, then another. There
Speaker 1: was nothing on the TV or in the papers. Neo
Speaker 1: and the others started to get nervous. It turned out
Speaker 1: that the team had made a crucial mistake. It was
Speaker 1: a mistake that revealed a blind spot in their training
Speaker 1: and in their view of the world. As massad agents,
Speaker 1: the five men were trained to hide from the press.
Speaker 1: They avoided journalists at all costs. Publicity was poisoned for
Speaker 1: us by agency, and so for years they've been taught
Speaker 1: how to conceal facts to avoid attention. That was great,
Speaker 1: except when you needed attention. Their training had made them
Speaker 1: ignorant about how reporters actually worked. They thought the body
Speaker 1: would just be discovered, like by accident. They never really
Speaker 1: thought about how that would have up. They'd hidden their
Speaker 1: tracks too well. No one was looking for Herbert Sukers,
Speaker 1: and no one knew about the body and the trunk.
Speaker 1: The whole point of the mission was slipping away finally
Speaker 1: from Sode. Agents started calling newspapers in Germany to report
Speaker 1: the assassination. No response. The reporters they spoke to thought
Speaker 1: they were cranks. Something about a body and a trunk
Speaker 1: and Nazis and never forgetting what was that even about.
Speaker 1: Journalists are busy and Uruguay was on the other side
Speaker 1: of the world. Me and the others had no idea
Speaker 1: how to get a reporter interested in a body in
Speaker 1: some random house in Montevideo. So they wrote letters describing
Speaker 1: the mission and why it was done, and they sent
Speaker 1: them to a bunch of news agencies. One of them
Speaker 1: reached a reporter. We don't know his name, but he
Speaker 1: read the letter and thought it was interesting. He decided
Speaker 1: to call the police in Montevideo. When he reached them,
Speaker 1: he asked about a murder of a Nazi named Herbert Suckers.
Speaker 1: Did they know anything about it? They didn't, but murders
Speaker 1: get attention. The file landed on the desk of the
Speaker 1: head of the Uruguayan Intelligence Service, a man named Alejandro Otero,
Speaker 1: and according to Uruguayan writer Fernando Budizoni, this wasn't the
Speaker 1: type of thing he typically handled. Look intelligence service in
Speaker 1: uy was a joke and the data was the chief
Speaker 1: was this joke. In fact, prior to this, Potero's main
Speaker 1: qualification didn't exactly have much to do with intelligence or
Speaker 1: law enforcement. He was the chief of the keeny Euruuayan
Speaker 1: Intelligence Service. A young man, very competent, who are so,
Speaker 1: was a soccer referee in the sixties and in uy
Speaker 1: your soccer is very popular, wash, very very But despite
Speaker 1: his inexperience, Otero assembled some officers and got in a
Speaker 1: patrol car to try to crack the case. He wandered
Speaker 1: around few days and they see that in the end
Speaker 1: they smell of the car. He guided him to the house.
Speaker 1: Jesus true. The officers knocked on the front door, no answer,
Speaker 1: but they smelled the stench coming from inside, and it
Speaker 1: was horrible. They went around the side and broke a
Speaker 1: window with the butts of their guns. They broke into
Speaker 1: the house. As they entered, they noticed dark splotches almost black,
Speaker 1: on some of the walls. They saw the leather trunk.
Speaker 1: Next to it were two shell casings, two caliber. There
Speaker 1: were also parts of a gun on the floor. It
Speaker 1: had been broken apart. The office broke the lock on
Speaker 1: the trunk and pulled up the top. When they looked inside,
Speaker 1: they saw a bright red folder laying on what appeared
Speaker 1: to be a body. They had found Herbert suckers Hi.
Speaker 1: This is Stephen Talty, host of good assassins Hunting the Butcher.
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Speaker 1: on Apple Podcasts, I hired radio app or wherever listened
Speaker 1: to your podcasts. Back at the station, O Tero began
Speaker 1: to develop a basic theory of the case. I think
Speaker 1: that he understood several things from the beginning. First that
Speaker 1: it was the work of this release and second that
Speaker 1: it was an international action done by professionals. And at
Speaker 1: the same time, news of the assassination started to break
Speaker 1: in Uruguay and it left quite an impression on young
Speaker 1: Fernando good Zoni in I was eleven years old. I remember,
Speaker 1: of course, the Suckers assassination was a shock. This was
Speaker 1: a incredibleous situation. International criminal killer in in my country,
Speaker 1: no way. Of course, at eleven years old, I could
Speaker 1: already hear the adult conversation and see the front page
Speaker 1: of the new newspapers and the magazine, and I remember
Speaker 1: the pictures on the frontage Google's body in the trunk
Speaker 1: or that was very terrifying to me. Really, oh, Tero
Speaker 1: would eventually drop his investigation. He didn't want to ignite
Speaker 1: an international crisis. But before he did, he traveled to
Speaker 1: Brazil to meet with Sucre's family and it left a
Speaker 1: lingering impression. I interviewed him many years ago and he
Speaker 1: told me that Sucos family was unreliable, especially the widow.
Speaker 1: He thinks that the family was a dark family. I
Speaker 1: don't know why. At this point, the news of the
Speaker 1: assassination was starting to break around the world. The Massad
Speaker 1: team still in Paris caught it as the lead story
Speaker 1: of the French evening news, and it ran in Germany, Israel,
Speaker 1: the US and other countries. Journalists blocked to Montevideo to
Speaker 1: look into the mysterious killing of a Nazi war criminal.
Speaker 1: Conspiracy theories started sprouting everywhere. One rumor was the air
Speaker 1: holes had been found punched into the leather trunk that
Speaker 1: would indicate that someone had been trying to kidnap Suckers
Speaker 1: but had to kill him instead. Others believed that Suckers
Speaker 1: had been part of a Massad plot to catch Joseph Mengela,
Speaker 1: the butcher of Auschwitz, was supposed to lee hiding out
Speaker 1: in South America too. The story went that Massad had
Speaker 1: made a deal if Zuker's lured Mangola out of hiding,
Speaker 1: he himself would be allowed to go free. Through all
Speaker 1: this public speculation, Massad states silent as usual. They didn't
Speaker 1: confirm or deny being involved, but everyone knew it was
Speaker 1: the Israelis. In Germany, as articles about Herbert Sukers appeared
Speaker 1: in the press, one of the major networks announced they
Speaker 1: were going to televise the debate on the Statute of Limitations.
Speaker 1: It would air live. It was rare to do that
Speaker 1: in Germany at the time, but the issue was getting
Speaker 1: unprecedented attention from the media. Tickets for the visitors gallery
Speaker 1: at the Boonstag became hot commodities. There were dozens of
Speaker 1: requests for every seat all the Colonel. Finally, March tenth arrived,
Speaker 1: the debate in the German Parliament began. The Conservative government
Speaker 1: still backed the amnesty. They wanted to put an end
Speaker 1: to Nazi trials, to draw a line under the Holocaust
Speaker 1: and move on. The Liberals, for the most part, I
Speaker 1: believed that was wrong. A full accounting of the Holocaust
Speaker 1: had never been made. There were still killers out there
Speaker 1: living happy and free. They had to face justice. Deliss
Speaker 1: shot to the Scotia. There was one Liberal who went
Speaker 1: against his party. He supported the statute. His name was
Speaker 1: Adolph Aren't, the son of a law professor. The sixty
Speaker 1: year old Aren't was a tall, schoolmasterish guy with a
Speaker 1: serious legal mind. Aren't had refused on principle to join
Speaker 1: the Nazi Party before World War Two began, and he
Speaker 1: was fired from the position as a judge because of it. Instead,
Speaker 1: he used his skills as a lawyer to help jose
Speaker 1: escape to the US, England and Switzerland. After being categorized
Speaker 1: as half Jewish himself, he was interned in a work
Speaker 1: camp in and forced to do hard labor. The following year,
Speaker 1: was arrested and sent to prison. And yet Aren't felt
Speaker 1: that changing the statute would only make things worse. Other
Speaker 1: regimes in the future might change laws retroactively to accuse
Speaker 1: their enemies of crimes. The law should be sacred. That
Speaker 1: was Adolph Aren't's position that afternoon, as millions of people
Speaker 1: tuned in on television, Germans were literally debating the meaning
Speaker 1: of the Holocaust. How long should his killers be hunted down?
Speaker 1: How many people shared in the guilt. Speaker after speaker
Speaker 1: got up to argue their side of the issue. It
Speaker 1: went on for hours. Finally Adolph Aren't rose to speak.
Speaker 1: He supported the statute for months. The fact that he
Speaker 1: was half Jewish gave credibility to the pro statute side.
Speaker 1: If one of Hitler's victims said to keep it, who
Speaker 1: could argue with that? But his Arn't began to speak,
Speaker 1: His fellow legislators went silent. Something was happening. It became
Speaker 1: clear as the minutes went by that Aren't had changed
Speaker 1: his mind. He was coming out against the statute. In
Speaker 1: his speech, Aren't talked about a representative Nazi killer, the
Speaker 1: kind of perpetrator who would receive an amnesty if the
Speaker 1: law went ahead. A man who takes an infant by
Speaker 1: zavit in front of his mother and shutters his head
Speaker 1: on the nearest iron post. A man who has twenty
Speaker 1: thousand or thousands of people shocked or killed. A man
Speaker 1: trains his dog so that he tears apart and prisoners
Speaker 1: gentles before the prisoner is put to death in the
Speaker 1: most cruel way. A man who forces prisoners to kneel
Speaker 1: in the pios they have dubbed themselves, then gives them
Speaker 1: the next shot, and then the next victim comes in.
Speaker 1: So that's for days. A fountain of blood splashes out
Speaker 1: of this masskrive. One cannot say of this man, why
Speaker 1: is he still dealing with his act today? That number
Speaker 1: Aren't mentioned jumped out at me. People. It was the
Speaker 1: same number that thirty thou that was included in the
Speaker 1: verdict that the Massad team had left on Suker's body.
Speaker 1: It was in many of the stories that ran after
Speaker 1: the news of the assassination was made public. Was it
Speaker 1: just a coincidence that Aren't as he changed his mind
Speaker 1: seemingly at the eleventh hour, mentioned the exact number of
Speaker 1: victims that Herbert Sucres had been accused of killing. I'm
Speaker 1: not sure, but it seems unlikely. Chances are Aren't had
Speaker 1: read about Suckers and what he'd done during the war,
Speaker 1: and it had affected him. Here's get Chamron again. The
Speaker 1: excesad agent. There's no doubt in my heart that the
Speaker 1: operation was successful. And the fact that in the waves
Speaker 1: brought up after the Aischman kidnapped, being war already going down,
Speaker 1: and the what talks in Europe, especially in West Germany,
Speaker 1: at the time of maybe time to to make a line,
Speaker 1: you know, and forget what happened twenty years ago. We
Speaker 1: look for the future. Let's let's decide normal Nazi huntings,
Speaker 1: no more Natzi trials. What they college stretch line college
Speaker 1: in Germany strich linear, that's right, German world. And this
Speaker 1: was the reason for the operation. And uh once the
Speaker 1: body of suppose found in Motividel and the vote in
Speaker 1: the Bundesta a few days later rejected the proposal of
Speaker 1: making Nazi crimes okay finished twenty years So, you know,
Speaker 1: it's something you cannot quantify, but I do believe it
Speaker 1: had the repercussions, and it had the right repercussions desired
Speaker 1: by those who decided to go for this proachet. If
Speaker 1: it hadn't been for eight of Ourn't speech and is
Speaker 1: mentioning of the thirty thous and victims, I wouldn't be
Speaker 1: so sure. There were big questions being debated guilt for
Speaker 1: the death of millions, Germany's future, and Germany's guilt. It's
Speaker 1: hard to imagine that one assassination in a distant country
Speaker 1: could have turned the tide against the amnesty in this
Speaker 1: German politician's mind. But Suakers gave a face to the Holocaust.
Speaker 1: The stories about his atrocities were so terrible, and the
Speaker 1: news of the assassination was so fresh it might have
Speaker 1: lingered in the minds of some legislators. A sketch Smron said,
Speaker 1: it's impossible to say for sure, but it's clear that
Speaker 1: the mission made it known that there were still many
Speaker 1: more butchers out there. When the votes were counted, it
Speaker 1: was votes in favor of the statute, three hundred and
Speaker 1: sixty one against and four abstentions. In the end, the
Speaker 1: time period for prosecuting Nazi criminals was extended for five years.
Speaker 1: The killers would not get an amnesty. In the months
Speaker 1: and years following the Zuker's mission, hundreds of Nazi mass
Speaker 1: killers were discovered and prosecuted, and, perhaps more importantly, the
Speaker 1: idea that was only Hitler and a few of his
Speaker 1: lieutenants that caused the Holocaust began to change. The prosecutions
Speaker 1: brought to light the role that thousands of Germans and
Speaker 1: their collaborators played in the genocide. A much fuller picture
Speaker 1: of how the Holocaust worked and who carried it out emerged.
Speaker 1: There were other factors, of course, including the rise of
Speaker 1: a new generation of Germans who hadn't been born when
Speaker 1: the Third Dreich was in power, But the vote on
Speaker 1: the amnesty was a turning point to be a freedman.
Speaker 1: The Polish Nazi hunter who had fought so hard against
Speaker 1: the amnesty was overjoyed by the result, as with Simon
Speaker 1: of Vicenthal. Five years later, the deadline for prosecutions was
Speaker 1: extended again for another five years, and then in the
Speaker 1: statute came up for a third and final vote. The
Speaker 1: count was much closer, this time two to eliminate any
Speaker 1: time limit. Two two against freedman, and the others had one.
Speaker 1: There would be no amnesty for Nazi war criminals. Ever,
Speaker 1: Friedman wrote today, these murderers have been silenced until the
Speaker 1: end of their lives. Massad never took responsibility for the
Speaker 1: Zuker's mission. That was just its policy, but many survivors
Speaker 1: in Israel knew who had carried it out. People would
Speaker 1: come up to me on the street and thank him.
Speaker 1: He received letters from the families of those murdered in Latvia,
Speaker 1: and every year the five men who carried out the
Speaker 1: mission gathered to remember. They would have a drink or
Speaker 1: two and talk about Montevideo and Cassa, Kubertini and the
Speaker 1: rest of it. After the operation, Joseph your Reeve did
Speaker 1: well at MASSAD, who was promoted to the head of
Speaker 1: the agency in Europe, and he retired. Mio's career was
Speaker 1: less successful. He was frustrated the Suker's mission had been
Speaker 1: a huge success, but there were no promotions for him.
Speaker 1: The fact that he was an introvert and not really
Speaker 1: a commander of men it worked against him, and maybe
Speaker 1: something else. Most of them SAD agents who rose to
Speaker 1: the top where sabras men born in Israel. Mia was
Speaker 1: a bit of an outsider. He'd been born in Germany
Speaker 1: and spoke with a strong German accent. It set him apart.
Speaker 1: Mio retired from the Massad and settled in a leafy
Speaker 1: neighborhood in Tel Aviv. Once in a while, when MASSA
Speaker 1: needed a certain kind of operative for a mission, it
Speaker 1: would call him up and he would come out of
Speaker 1: retirement for a week or two, but mostly he spent
Speaker 1: his time spoiling his grandchildren. As the years went by,
Speaker 1: he would often look back on his career and talk
Speaker 1: about the missions that meant the most to him. When
Speaker 1: I spoke with me a son in Tel Aviv, he
Speaker 1: told me it was always the Zuker's operation that Mia
Speaker 1: was proudest of. For him, it was the pinnacle of
Speaker 1: his career and really of his life. Ye Meo had
Speaker 1: led a mission that helped change history, but for me
Speaker 1: serious questions remained. The main one was why Zookers had
Speaker 1: done what he'd done. Even Meo, as good as spy
Speaker 1: as he was, never cracked that mystery. In the next episode,
Speaker 1: I'll tell you about the surprising answers I found and
Speaker 1: the brilliant Jewish woman who went through hell to reveal
Speaker 1: the truth about the Butcher of Latvia. Good Assassins. Hunting
Speaker 1: the Butcher is a production of Diversion Podcasts in association
Speaker 1: with I Heart Radio. This season is written and hosted
Speaker 1: by Stephen Talti, produced and directed by Scott Waxman and
Speaker 1: Jacob Bronstein. Executive producers Scott Waxman and Mark Francis. Story
Speaker 1: Editing by Jacob Bronstein, with editorial direction from Scott Waxman
Speaker 1: and Mangesh had Ticketour. Editing, mixing and sound design by
Speaker 1: Mark Francis with the voices of Nick Afka, Thomas Armory, Angele,
Speaker 1: Andrew Polkue, Mindy Escobar, Leants, Steve Rautman and Stefan Rudnitsky.
Speaker 1: Theme music by Tyler Cash. Archival research by Adam Shapiro,
Speaker 1: thanks to Oran Rosenbaum at ut A Diversion Podcasts.