WEBVTT - S1-E06: The Kill Team 0:00:06.280 --> 0:00:13.960 Diversion podcasts. This episode contains descriptions of graphic violence and 0:00:14.040 --> 0:00:33.440 scenes of genocide. Listener's discretion is advised. Meo had gotten 0:00:33.440 --> 0:00:36.680 a step closer to the Butcher. He'd come back from 0:00:36.680 --> 0:00:39.200 the road trip to the plantations in the Brazilian jungle 0:00:39.720 --> 0:00:42.879 thinking he was making progress. The Butcher was starting to 0:00:42.960 --> 0:00:46.720 trust him. Neo sat down to write a report to 0:00:46.800 --> 0:00:49.160 your Reeve. He was expected to fill in his boss 0:00:49.440 --> 0:00:52.440 with every major development. At the same time you know 0:00:52.520 --> 0:00:55.080 was drawing up his report, things were starting to heat 0:00:55.160 --> 0:00:58.120 up with the Statute of Limitations, which was the whole 0:00:58.160 --> 0:01:01.320 reason for the mission, to stop Germans from giving Nazi 0:01:01.400 --> 0:01:06.280 killers a free pass for their atrocities. Here's Abner Abraham again, 0:01:06.520 --> 0:01:10.319 the former Massad agent and historian of the agency. I 0:01:10.319 --> 0:01:12.680 mean it's you compared for examples to be Latin. In 0:01:12.760 --> 0:01:16.479 September eleven, it was a revenge but in the mossadoh 0:01:16.520 --> 0:01:19.120 and they decided to kill someone and the Plume Minister 0:01:19.400 --> 0:01:24.240 confirmed this target. It was to prevent him and to 0:01:24.480 --> 0:01:29.080 prevent mortal attacks and more killing of Jews. That that 0:01:29.319 --> 0:01:40.759 was the idea. I'm Steven Talty and this is good 0:01:40.800 --> 0:01:49.760 assassins hunting the butcher. So it's the first month was 0:01:49.880 --> 0:01:53.480 to find a nasty a briging forward trial. The second 0:01:53.520 --> 0:01:57.880 part was to find a Nazi and killing. We must 0:01:58.160 --> 0:02:01.760 thwoat the shining losses. He hadn't of a trail of 0:02:01.840 --> 0:02:04.440 blood and horror, the end of a man whose name 0:02:04.520 --> 0:02:25.920 will be written in informating episode six. The kill team. 0:02:25.919 --> 0:02:28.960 By the end of the world was waking up to 0:02:28.960 --> 0:02:31.880 the fact that the Germans really intended to go ahead 0:02:31.919 --> 0:02:36.080 with the amnesty, so the Jewish resistance was stepping up 0:02:36.080 --> 0:02:40.600 their efforts to try and stop it. To Via Friedman, 0:02:40.960 --> 0:02:43.400 the Nazi hunter, who had met with the German Justice minister, 0:02:43.880 --> 0:02:47.320 was giving interviews in Israel and encouraging world leaders to 0:02:47.400 --> 0:02:50.760 speak out. He was keeping an eye on Germany, hoping 0:02:50.800 --> 0:02:53.880 to pressure and shame its politicians into stopping the amnesty. 0:02:54.760 --> 0:02:57.959 As the cause gained more traction, protesters appeared on the 0:02:57.960 --> 0:03:01.560 streets of Tel Aviv and Jerusalem. Soon they would spread 0:03:01.560 --> 0:03:06.200 all over the world, from New York to London. Freedman 0:03:06.320 --> 0:03:08.959 was good one on one with his eyewitness accounts of 0:03:08.960 --> 0:03:13.400 the Holocaust. He could persuade people. Earlier, when the head 0:03:13.440 --> 0:03:16.560 of the Socialist Party in Germany came to Israel. Freedman 0:03:16.600 --> 0:03:19.440 went to see him in the lobby of his hotel, 0:03:19.840 --> 0:03:23.480 and Israeli security agent spotted Freeman coming through the front doors. 0:03:24.080 --> 0:03:27.120 The agent hurried over, almost blocking Freeman from making it 0:03:27.160 --> 0:03:31.440 to the elevators. The guy was pale, nervous. He thought 0:03:31.680 --> 0:03:34.480 the activists was up to no good. The agent asked 0:03:34.480 --> 0:03:39.240 of Freeman was there to assassinate the German leader. Freedman laughed, 0:03:39.560 --> 0:03:43.040 guy knew his reputation, but Freeman told the agent that no, 0:03:43.440 --> 0:03:45.800 he was just going to talk to the politician. The 0:03:45.840 --> 0:03:49.400 agent let him pass. Freedman went upstairs and made his 0:03:49.440 --> 0:03:53.560 presentation to the German official. It was powerful stuff. A 0:03:53.560 --> 0:03:57.600 few hours later, the Socialist leader agreed to oppose the amnesty. 0:03:58.120 --> 0:04:01.440 Was another small coup for Freedman in this campaign to 0:04:01.560 --> 0:04:13.680 sway the German government. Importantly, another much more famous Nazi 0:04:13.760 --> 0:04:18.799 hunter joined the cause, Simon Wisenthal. Visenthal had barely survived 0:04:18.800 --> 0:04:22.640 World War Two, having been imprisoned in four concentration camps 0:04:22.920 --> 0:04:30.800 between in he was in a Polish camp when his 0:04:30.839 --> 0:04:35.640 commander decided to celebrate Hitler's birthday by executing fifty four 0:04:35.720 --> 0:04:40.200 Jewish intellectuals, one for every year of the Feurer's life. 0:04:41.480 --> 0:04:49.039 Enthal was chosen to be one of them. He listened 0:04:49.240 --> 0:04:52.480 as the others were shot before the killers came to him, 0:04:52.520 --> 0:04:56.200 though someone called his name. One of the Germans had 0:04:56.240 --> 0:04:59.920 convinced the commander that Visenthal, who was an accomplished artist, 0:05:00.279 --> 0:05:03.440 should paint a poster of Hitler instead of being murdered. 0:05:04.040 --> 0:05:06.599 He was led away from the pits and later escaped 0:05:06.640 --> 0:05:11.960 from the camp. Visenthal made it through, but he lost 0:05:12.040 --> 0:05:15.520 his family. Weeks after the war ended, he was already 0:05:15.560 --> 0:05:19.320 hunting down Nazis. That quest would occupy him for the 0:05:19.320 --> 0:05:23.800 rest of his life. Visenthal did everything. He spent months 0:05:23.839 --> 0:05:27.200 digging through archives. He staked out apartment buildings waiting for 0:05:27.240 --> 0:05:30.479 ex Nazis to show up, and unlike Friedman, he made 0:05:30.480 --> 0:05:34.719 friends in high places, recruiting politicians and celebrities to his mission. 0:05:36.160 --> 0:05:39.600 He'd had some major successes. When Anne Frank's diary became 0:05:39.600 --> 0:05:43.159 a worldwide bestseller, some Austrians claimed it was a fake. 0:05:43.720 --> 0:05:46.800 They said that Anne Frank had never existed, and they 0:05:46.880 --> 0:05:50.880 challenged Wisenthal to find Carl Silberbauer, the man who had 0:05:50.920 --> 0:05:55.760 supposedly arrested her. Resenthal went to work. After months of 0:05:55.760 --> 0:05:59.239 searching in which Wisenthal spent hours coming through Nazi records 0:05:59.320 --> 0:06:02.840 and Dutch phone books. He found Silverbauer was working as 0:06:02.839 --> 0:06:07.480 a policeman in Vienna. Visenthal exposed him, and silver Bauer 0:06:07.560 --> 0:06:11.279 admitted that Anne Frank had indeed existed and her memoir 0:06:11.839 --> 0:06:15.440 was truthful. It was a major blow to Holocaust deniers. 0:06:17.400 --> 0:06:20.760 Visenthal tracked down Eric Jakowitch, who had been in charge 0:06:20.760 --> 0:06:23.359 of putting Jews from the Netherlands on the trains to 0:06:23.400 --> 0:06:28.080 their desks. Visenthal found Jakowitch living in Italy, where a 0:06:28.160 --> 0:06:31.520 Catholic bishop had helped the Nazi even let him live 0:06:31.839 --> 0:06:36.000 in a local convent. By the early sixties, Jackowitch was 0:06:36.040 --> 0:06:39.359 a millionaire several times over and living a comfortable life. 0:06:40.600 --> 0:06:44.240 Visenthal uncovered his past, and the Nazis picture appeared on 0:06:44.279 --> 0:06:47.480 the front pages of newspapers all over Europe. He went 0:06:47.520 --> 0:06:50.680 on the run, first to Switzerland, then to Germany, but 0:06:50.880 --> 0:06:54.960 Visenthal wouldn't give up. He found him again, and finally 0:06:55.000 --> 0:07:02.760 the killer gave up. He was thrown in jail. So 0:07:02.760 --> 0:07:05.840 Simon Wiesenthal was good at what he did. He was 0:07:05.880 --> 0:07:09.320 a master publicist, self promoter, but he was just as 0:07:09.320 --> 0:07:11.840 obsessed with finding the men and women responsible for the 0:07:11.880 --> 0:07:16.200 genocide and bringing Nazis to justice. You're not just married 0:07:16.240 --> 0:07:19.320 to me. Visenthal's wife used to tell him, you were 0:07:19.360 --> 0:07:23.560 married to the six million. The further ist cause. Reisenthal 0:07:23.640 --> 0:07:27.000 had even become a massad operative. The agency sent him 0:07:27.000 --> 0:07:29.760 an allowance a few hundred dollars a month to help 0:07:29.760 --> 0:07:35.120 with his quest. Here's Wisenthal explaining the significance of the 0:07:35.160 --> 0:07:42.000 Statute of Limitations after that time, via then we will 0:07:42.040 --> 0:07:45.280 find new people. They commit crimes. So I find new 0:07:45.320 --> 0:07:50.520 evidence about people. They are free. They cannot bring them 0:07:50.520 --> 0:07:55.480 for justice in Germany. And this mean thousands. This means 0:07:55.520 --> 0:08:02.040 thousands of people because we lost eleven million witnesses Lake Friedman. 0:08:02.520 --> 0:08:04.960 Simon Visenthal went to meet with the Justice minister in 0:08:05.000 --> 0:08:08.760 Germany about the coming amnesty. He wanted to know what 0:08:08.800 --> 0:08:12.200 would happen if the statute went into effect. Around six 0:08:12.200 --> 0:08:15.400 thousand men had served at Auschwitz, only a tiny number 0:08:15.440 --> 0:08:18.760 of them, less than one percent had even been brought 0:08:18.800 --> 0:08:22.320 to trial when the statute went into effect. With the 0:08:22.400 --> 0:08:26.520 rest I'll go free. The German minister avoided the question. 0:08:26.880 --> 0:08:29.440 He started talking about the billions of Deutsche marks in 0:08:29.480 --> 0:08:34.800 reparations that Germany had paid to survivors. Visenthal seethed. He 0:08:34.920 --> 0:08:37.520 wasn't there to talk about money. He's there to talk 0:08:37.559 --> 0:08:40.880 about punishment. It was once more a case of I 0:08:40.960 --> 0:08:45.400 was simply not speaking the same language I told him 0:08:45.720 --> 0:08:49.040 he had, Minister, the murderer of my mother and the 0:08:49.160 --> 0:08:52.640 murderers of many of my relations and friends have not 0:08:52.920 --> 0:08:57.839 been found yet. I don't even know their names. I 0:08:57.880 --> 0:09:01.000 am a dressing the Minister of us. This is not 0:09:01.240 --> 0:09:07.840 definance Minister. I recognized the Federal Republic's financial efforts, but 0:09:08.480 --> 0:09:13.040 surely they cannot be a substitute for efforts to achieve justice. 0:09:14.360 --> 0:09:17.600 I have come to you as a very specific question, 0:09:18.559 --> 0:09:24.080 what happens after me eight? That was the date the 0:09:24.120 --> 0:09:30.440 amnesty was supposed to go into effect May eighth. The 0:09:30.480 --> 0:09:34.000 Minister didn't give Resenthal and answer. In fact, he was 0:09:34.040 --> 0:09:36.720 starting to sound slippery on the whole issue. Did he 0:09:36.760 --> 0:09:40.840 support the amnesty or didn't he? He told Recenthal it 0:09:40.960 --> 0:09:45.400 wasn't up to him to decide. The Nazi Hunter wasn't satisfied. 0:09:45.800 --> 0:09:48.760 He decided to launch a pr campaign to let people 0:09:48.800 --> 0:09:52.720 around the world know what was going on. Reasenthal was 0:09:52.760 --> 0:09:54.880 brilliant at that kind of thing. He had the kind 0:09:54.880 --> 0:09:58.880 of marketing skills the vision the two Via freedmen blocked. 0:10:00.000 --> 0:10:03.200 Eisenthal wrote an open letter condemning the statute. He called 0:10:03.200 --> 0:10:07.520 the amnesty an unprecedented injustice towards the millions of victims 0:10:07.720 --> 0:10:11.440 of Nazi brutality. Once the murders knew they would never 0:10:11.480 --> 0:10:15.000 be prosecuted, Easenthal wrote, they would link arms with other 0:10:15.120 --> 0:10:18.680 enemies of liberty. They would spread their propaganda and poison 0:10:19.240 --> 0:10:23.400 to the young people of Germany and then abroad. Visenthal 0:10:23.520 --> 0:10:27.760 was broadening the issue beyond the Holocaust at the West 0:10:27.800 --> 0:10:31.040 Germans that the killers of six million get away with it, 0:10:31.800 --> 0:10:35.280 the world would be a far more dangerous place for everybody. 0:10:37.240 --> 0:10:40.040 Visenthal sent the letter to famous people in Europe, America 0:10:40.320 --> 0:10:44.319 and elsewhere. The great American playwright Arthur Miller signed it, 0:10:44.800 --> 0:10:48.720 as did a Nobel Prize winning physicist, The future Pope 0:10:48.720 --> 0:10:53.120 Benedict sixteen announced his support. His own cousin, who had 0:10:53.160 --> 0:10:56.920 down syndrome, had been murdered by the Nazis. Dozens and 0:10:57.000 --> 0:11:01.440 dozens of others joined the campaign, artists, pol Titians, religious leaders. 0:11:02.080 --> 0:11:05.480 Even Robert Kennedy was still recovering from the assassination of 0:11:05.559 --> 0:11:10.920 his brother JFK sent a telegram moral duties. It read 0:11:11.559 --> 0:11:16.800 have no term. Robert Kennedy came out against Germany's planned amnesty, 0:11:18.800 --> 0:11:21.160 but the efforts of the two Nazi hunters, Freedman and 0:11:21.200 --> 0:11:25.160 Wisenthal were in the winner of nine four, having little 0:11:25.200 --> 0:11:29.240 effect in Germany. Opinion polls there still show the statute 0:11:29.320 --> 0:11:33.920 was popular the numbers they weren't budgeting. The two activists 0:11:34.000 --> 0:11:38.840 believed they were losing the fight, which could make Massad's 0:11:38.920 --> 0:11:42.640 Zuker's mission that much more important. It was the final 0:11:42.760 --> 0:11:50.680 piece that could sway the debate. A last shot. Neo 0:11:50.760 --> 0:11:52.719 wrote out his report on his trip with Sukers to 0:11:52.760 --> 0:11:55.760 the plantation. When he was finished, he took a business 0:11:55.840 --> 0:11:58.280 letter that he had already typed out and copied out 0:11:58.280 --> 0:12:01.920 the report in invisible inc inserting the text between the lines. 0:12:02.559 --> 0:12:04.679 Then he folded the letter, put it in an air 0:12:04.760 --> 0:12:07.480 mail envelope and send it off to his boss your 0:12:07.520 --> 0:12:12.760 reeve in Paris. Meal's use of invisible ink intrigued me. 0:12:13.400 --> 0:12:16.280 It's something that, of course I've seen dozens of times 0:12:16.400 --> 0:12:19.480 and spy novels and movies, but I kind of assumed 0:12:19.600 --> 0:12:22.320 that in real life invisible ink would be a bit 0:12:22.400 --> 0:12:26.719 too crude for sophisticated agency like the MASSAD. So I 0:12:26.840 --> 0:12:31.640 checked with an intelligence historian named h. Keith Melton, and 0:12:31.760 --> 0:12:35.120 turns out it was actually a widespread tactic at the time. 0:12:36.520 --> 0:12:40.000 Invisible links have been used for probably a thousand years 0:12:40.080 --> 0:12:44.480 or thousands of years, going back ultimately to Limon juice. 0:12:45.080 --> 0:12:47.240 And you know, if you take a limon juice right 0:12:47.320 --> 0:12:50.520 a secret message between the lines and then hold it 0:12:50.600 --> 0:12:54.600 up to a flame, you can see it becomes visible. 0:12:55.040 --> 0:12:58.480 So the standard component of all invisible aks is the 0:12:58.600 --> 0:13:01.440 ink itself, and the reagent is the way you make 0:13:01.520 --> 0:13:09.800 it visible. And services developed extraordinarily complex secret inks. But 0:13:10.080 --> 0:13:13.680 you could create a secret eak out of salava, out 0:13:13.720 --> 0:13:16.880 of water. You could use it out of diluted blood. 0:13:17.040 --> 0:13:19.719 You could use it from sperm, you could use it 0:13:19.880 --> 0:13:23.679 from bodily fluids. Secret ease can be made out of 0:13:23.679 --> 0:13:26.599 a variety of things. Water is probably one of the 0:13:26.640 --> 0:13:31.080 most interesting because just water can later be detected by 0:13:31.280 --> 0:13:35.880 intelligent service. In general, invisible ink has fallen out of 0:13:36.040 --> 0:13:39.599 use today, but according to Melton, that might be the 0:13:39.760 --> 0:13:44.080 very reason not to discount it entirely. The Russian Service 0:13:44.320 --> 0:13:48.679 quit searching and quit teaching skills for secretings around the 0:13:48.800 --> 0:13:52.719 year two thousands, so as you use belfore then, but 0:13:52.920 --> 0:13:57.760 sometimes tradecraft becomes so forgotten about it and so old 0:13:58.240 --> 0:14:01.240 it becomes usable again. But there's no one's looking for 0:14:01.600 --> 0:14:05.480 And I don't believe the U. S. Coastal Service has 0:14:05.559 --> 0:14:09.560 a capability to the sect secrets anymore, where they certainly 0:14:09.640 --> 0:14:16.720 would have had that fifties sixty seventy years ago. Back 0:14:16.800 --> 0:14:20.320 to me O, he now had a much better feel 0:14:20.560 --> 0:14:23.720 for Zookers, what might work getting him to another country 0:14:24.240 --> 0:14:29.560 and what wouldn't. In his report, he wrote that the 0:14:29.680 --> 0:14:33.600 plantation trip had been worthwhile because he was conditioning Zookers 0:14:33.920 --> 0:14:36.720 to get comfortable with longer and longer trips away from home. 0:14:37.560 --> 0:14:40.560 This was key. He couldn't just bring a flight to 0:14:40.640 --> 0:14:43.720 say Chili on the butcher. He had to build up 0:14:43.760 --> 0:14:47.200 to that slowly, step by step, to make sure that 0:14:47.280 --> 0:14:51.760 suckers would follow him wherever he went. There was also 0:14:51.840 --> 0:14:55.640 the question of the assassination method. Massad had many ways 0:14:55.720 --> 0:15:00.560 to take someone out, what they called targeted killings. In 0:15:00.720 --> 0:15:04.120 nineteen two, when the Egyptians began building rockets at a 0:15:04.160 --> 0:15:08.040 facility in the desert called Factory three three three, Basada 0:15:08.080 --> 0:15:11.240 knew the missiles would eventually be aimed at Israel. They 0:15:11.320 --> 0:15:14.800 mailed two package bombs to the factory, killing five workers there. 0:15:16.080 --> 0:15:18.960 Later they were book bombs, one of which targeted a 0:15:19.040 --> 0:15:24.160 plo operative named Bassam Sharif. Shariff survived and we were 0:15:24.240 --> 0:15:27.480 actually able to find a tape of him discussing the incident. 0:15:29.040 --> 0:15:33.240 Uh that was allowed to day. That morning, when the 0:15:33.400 --> 0:15:37.360 book came to me, the mailman said, well, you have 0:15:37.440 --> 0:15:41.080 a book and it's stamped. I looked at the envelope. 0:15:41.120 --> 0:15:43.520 It was opened. The envelope was opened and the book 0:15:43.680 --> 0:15:48.000 was protruding out and stamped by the Lebanese government. Checked 0:15:48.120 --> 0:15:51.680 clear from explosives. So I was relaxed a little bit. 0:15:51.800 --> 0:15:54.840 And the moment I opened that time, you know I 0:15:54.960 --> 0:15:57.840 discovered it. It's part of a second. I've seen the 0:15:57.920 --> 0:16:01.960 explosive two charges. They have hold of the book and 0:16:02.160 --> 0:16:06.960 put two explosive charges one and another that action and 0:16:07.120 --> 0:16:10.960 one and then down, so that they cut me into 0:16:11.040 --> 0:16:15.680 three pieces. In my head. I was standing. That's why 0:16:16.920 --> 0:16:23.360 my managed to probably the Palestinian poet and terrorist Mohammed 0:16:23.400 --> 0:16:25.760 Buddha opened the door of his car parked on the 0:16:25.800 --> 0:16:29.920 Paris street. Massad had planted a pressure activated bomb underneath 0:16:29.960 --> 0:16:33.400 the driver's seat. As soon as Buddhia sat down, it 0:16:33.520 --> 0:16:38.600 went off and Buddhia was killed. Other targets of Assad 0:16:38.960 --> 0:16:43.360 simply disappeared. That's what happened to one German scientist, Heinz Krug, 0:16:43.840 --> 0:16:46.960 who's helping Egypt build those missiles in the desert. He 0:16:47.040 --> 0:16:50.720 worked out of Munich. MASSAD sent the surveillance team there 0:16:50.960 --> 0:16:55.360 to learn Krug's movements. Then, early one evening, crew received 0:16:55.400 --> 0:16:57.240 a phone call from a man pretending to be a 0:16:57.320 --> 0:17:00.800 friend of the Egyptian general who's heading up missile program. 0:17:01.760 --> 0:17:04.520 Something important had come up, and the man requested a 0:17:04.560 --> 0:17:09.800 meeting at the Ambassador Hotel in Munich. Krug suspected nothing. 0:17:10.920 --> 0:17:13.080 He went to the meeting and met the man, who 0:17:13.160 --> 0:17:17.680 was actually a MASSAD operative. They discussed business. The next day, 0:17:18.080 --> 0:17:20.520 the operative picked him up for another round of discussions 0:17:21.000 --> 0:17:24.280 brought him to a villa in the suburbs. Krug going 0:17:24.320 --> 0:17:28.359 into the villa expecting to meet one of the Egyptian commanders. Inside, 0:17:28.400 --> 0:17:31.359 there was a MASSAD team waiting for him. They hit 0:17:31.440 --> 0:17:34.280 him on the head and put him still alive in 0:17:34.359 --> 0:17:37.760 the secret compartment inside a v W camper. He was 0:17:37.840 --> 0:17:41.840 driven to Marseilles, France, sedated, put on an airplane, and 0:17:41.960 --> 0:17:45.880 flown to Israel. Their Kruge was roughed up and interrogated. 0:17:46.680 --> 0:17:49.639 After spilling his secrets over many months, a Massad agent 0:17:49.720 --> 0:17:52.320 was ordered to take him to a deserted area north 0:17:52.359 --> 0:17:55.919 of Tel Aviv to kill him. Krug's body was then 0:17:56.000 --> 0:17:59.800 loaded aboard and Israeli military plane and dumped into the sea. 0:18:06.440 --> 0:18:10.639 Some Massad assassins used handguns, though the cliche method a 0:18:10.760 --> 0:18:13.399 rifle fired from a long distance never seemed to be 0:18:13.480 --> 0:18:16.679 part of their repertoire. One PLO man was shot by 0:18:16.680 --> 0:18:20.440 a guy driving by on a motorcycle. Another target was 0:18:20.480 --> 0:18:24.080 pushed into traffic was killed by a passing car. There 0:18:24.160 --> 0:18:27.200 was even a target who was dosed with radioactive material 0:18:27.760 --> 0:18:34.040 and later died years later. Another suspected victim of Massad, 0:18:34.640 --> 0:18:37.600 a scientist who doubled as a colonel in the Egyptian Army, 0:18:38.080 --> 0:18:42.840 fell quote unquote from a balcony in Alexandria. When Egyptian 0:18:42.880 --> 0:18:45.600 police entered his apartment, they found the gas had been 0:18:45.640 --> 0:18:48.000 turned on and there were cuts in the scientist's arms, 0:18:48.640 --> 0:18:52.520 both signs pointing to a suicide attempt. Massad had made 0:18:52.560 --> 0:18:54.720 it look like the man had tried to kill himself 0:18:54.800 --> 0:18:59.720 three different ways and finally succeeded. It had all the 0:18:59.760 --> 0:19:04.040 hall marks of an Israeli hit. Massad didn't claim responsibility, 0:19:04.560 --> 0:19:16.920 because Massad never claims responsibility. I wanted to let you 0:19:17.000 --> 0:19:20.919 know about something we're trying. We've set up an email 0:19:20.960 --> 0:19:24.240 address for listeners to send us your questions about the show. 0:19:25.080 --> 0:19:27.639 Are you curious about something you've heard on Hunting the 0:19:27.720 --> 0:19:30.440 Butcher and want to know more? Is there something I 0:19:30.520 --> 0:19:33.440 haven't covered that you wish I would. I want to 0:19:33.520 --> 0:19:37.600 hear from you. Record yourself asking your question. The voice 0:19:37.640 --> 0:19:41.399 memos app on iPhone works well. Include your name and 0:19:41.480 --> 0:19:44.040 where you're from, and we'll try to answer your question 0:19:44.200 --> 0:19:48.040 on a future episode. The email address is Hunting the 0:19:48.119 --> 0:19:53.200 Butcher at the Version podcast dot com. Record yourself asking 0:19:53.240 --> 0:19:56.760 a question and email it to me again. The email 0:19:56.760 --> 0:20:01.200 address is Hunting the Butcher at Diversion podcast asked dot com. 0:20:02.160 --> 0:20:04.719 That's a podcast plural with an S at the end. 0:20:05.520 --> 0:20:10.480 I'm looking forward to hearing your questions. Thanks. Now on 0:20:10.680 --> 0:20:20.680 with the show. So Meo had options for the assassination method, 0:20:21.200 --> 0:20:23.399 but he hadn't made up his mind on which was 0:20:23.480 --> 0:20:26.520 the best way to go, how should it be done? 0:20:26.880 --> 0:20:29.960 What would be the safest way? A bullets from a farm, 0:20:30.800 --> 0:20:34.440 perhaps poisoning, maybe a point blank shot in the back 0:20:34.520 --> 0:20:37.320 of the head. He had to know more about the 0:20:37.359 --> 0:20:42.320 butcher before he could decide. With his report completed, Meo 0:20:42.400 --> 0:20:45.600 got back in touch with Suckers. The butcher proposed another 0:20:45.640 --> 0:20:49.119 scouting trip for Coonsla's tourist business, this time to a 0:20:49.200 --> 0:20:53.840 town on the Brazilian coast called Santos. Meo jumped at 0:20:53.880 --> 0:20:56.720 the opportunity. A plan was starting to form in his head, 0:20:57.200 --> 0:21:00.680 a plan for the death of Herbert Suckers. He wanted 0:21:00.720 --> 0:21:02.840 to test out a couple of ideas for it, so 0:21:02.960 --> 0:21:05.119 he told Suckers they would check out the market for 0:21:05.160 --> 0:21:08.360 rental homes in Santos, get the prices, see how many 0:21:08.400 --> 0:21:10.680 were full this time of year. If it looked good, 0:21:11.160 --> 0:21:15.680 his company might start investing. Neo drove with Suckers to 0:21:15.720 --> 0:21:17.919 the coast and got a room at a nice hotel. 0:21:18.800 --> 0:21:21.840 The next morning, Neo set up a routine. They would 0:21:21.880 --> 0:21:23.960 find a rental home that was on the market and 0:21:24.000 --> 0:21:26.800 a range of visit. They talked to the owner, see 0:21:26.840 --> 0:21:28.919 what the properties were like and how much they were 0:21:28.960 --> 0:21:32.640 going for. Zuckers thought he was helping kunz La out 0:21:32.720 --> 0:21:36.520 with his business research. He did some interpreting. He spoke 0:21:36.560 --> 0:21:39.919 good Portuguese. Had Mio actually been looking to make investments, 0:21:40.280 --> 0:21:43.879 Suckers would have been pretty useful. One of the ideas 0:21:44.000 --> 0:21:46.800 Mio had for the assassination was to bring the butcher 0:21:46.840 --> 0:21:49.040 to a house in another of the South American countries 0:21:49.520 --> 0:21:52.639 and have the killed team waiting there for him. It 0:21:52.680 --> 0:21:55.840 would be private, safe, and it would give the team 0:21:55.960 --> 0:21:59.240 time alone with Suckers to read him his sentence. This 0:21:59.359 --> 0:22:02.240 option had a lot going for it, but if the 0:22:02.280 --> 0:22:04.920 plan was going to work, Meo had to train Sukers. 0:22:05.600 --> 0:22:08.680 Walking into strange houses had to be automatic for him. 0:22:11.200 --> 0:22:15.439 After Santos Zuker suggested they hit another beach town, Portelegre. 0:22:16.200 --> 0:22:19.159 Suckers was having a good time. Mia was paying all 0:22:19.160 --> 0:22:22.560 the bills, nice restaurants, good hotels. It was like a 0:22:22.720 --> 0:22:27.160 preview of coming attractions. If he could get on board 0:22:27.200 --> 0:22:30.159 with Kunsla's company, this would be his life from now on. 0:22:31.080 --> 0:22:37.560 He liked it. Meo was buttering up the butcher. You 0:22:37.680 --> 0:22:40.280 have no idea how glad I am we met, I 0:22:40.400 --> 0:22:43.760 told the butcher. It must have been the faiths that 0:22:43.880 --> 0:22:47.920 brought us together. You are at home here, who know 0:22:48.119 --> 0:22:51.240 the South American language and how to do business here. 0:22:56.680 --> 0:23:00.440 Mio agreed to meet Suckers and Portelegre a few days later. 0:23:01.200 --> 0:23:04.719 They traveled there separately. After Meal checked into their hotel, 0:23:05.400 --> 0:23:08.360 he went to Zuker's room. He knocked on the door, 0:23:09.520 --> 0:23:14.200 then he got a shock. Some seconds passed. Suddenly the 0:23:14.320 --> 0:23:18.359 door of us pulled open to reveal Ukers standing there, 0:23:18.840 --> 0:23:22.440 a gun in his hand. The snake is always on 0:23:22.520 --> 0:23:26.080 his toes, I thought, I pointed as the gun, I said, 0:23:26.960 --> 0:23:30.440 half jokingly, So what is it? But you're scared of me? 0:23:31.720 --> 0:23:34.720 If you had a long nose, then I would have 0:23:34.840 --> 0:23:39.560 a good reason to be scared. Zuker said, anyway, one 0:23:39.640 --> 0:23:43.160 must always be on the alert. He returns the gun 0:23:43.280 --> 0:23:48.159 to his pocket. Neio tried to laugh it off, but 0:23:48.280 --> 0:23:51.440 he could see that the butcher was actually nervous. It 0:23:51.680 --> 0:23:57.120 wasn't a good sign. Neo drove around Portle Gray with Zukers, 0:23:57.240 --> 0:24:00.280 looking at houses. At one point, Zuker's was in the 0:24:00.320 --> 0:24:04.080 passenger seat talking about tourism when Mio heard him mention 0:24:04.160 --> 0:24:08.720 the name Joseph Kramer. Meo managed to keep his eyes 0:24:08.760 --> 0:24:12.200 on the road. He controlled his breathing, showing no reaction, 0:24:12.960 --> 0:24:18.400 but inside he was reeling. Joseph Kramer. Most Jews who'd 0:24:18.400 --> 0:24:21.719 lost people in the Holocaust knew the name. The Belson 0:24:21.760 --> 0:24:25.440 War criminals arrived at Lunaboug for trial. Their faces gave 0:24:25.480 --> 0:24:27.879 a little clue to what they're thinking. Last out of 0:24:27.880 --> 0:24:31.359 the lotty is Joseph Kramer, the Beast of Belson. The calm, 0:24:31.480 --> 0:24:34.879 orderliness of the scene contrasts violently with the ghastly pictures 0:24:34.920 --> 0:24:37.720 which shocked the country when they were shown in British usually. 0:24:38.680 --> 0:24:41.960 Kramer was the infamous East of Belson. The former commander 0:24:42.000 --> 0:24:46.119 of the concentration camp Auschwitz, broken out to hundreds of 0:24:46.200 --> 0:24:50.360 thousands of Jews had died under his watch. He personally 0:24:50.440 --> 0:24:54.040 selected Jews for death. In fact, he seemed to enjoy it. 0:24:55.160 --> 0:24:57.560 Kramer was known to have been exceptionally brutal to the 0:24:57.640 --> 0:25:01.720 Jewish prisoners, sometimes whipping them until their skin flayed off 0:25:02.520 --> 0:25:06.399 leg suckers. Cramer had denied everything after the war. He 0:25:06.520 --> 0:25:10.560 told prosecutors the stories about him were quote products of 0:25:10.640 --> 0:25:15.280 the Jews imagination. Kramer was captured by the British tried 0:25:15.320 --> 0:25:17.320 in the months following the end of the war and 0:25:17.400 --> 0:25:21.480 what's known as the Belson Trial. Kramer was convicted and 0:25:21.600 --> 0:25:27.840 sentenced to death. He was hanged on December thirteenth. Meo 0:25:27.960 --> 0:25:30.240 kept driving, but his mind was going a mile a minute. 0:25:31.400 --> 0:25:34.960 Why would Suckers bring up Joseph Kramer. He hadn't even 0:25:35.000 --> 0:25:37.360 been talking about the war. He just dropped it into 0:25:37.359 --> 0:25:40.000 the middle of a boring little monologue about some topic. 0:25:40.080 --> 0:25:45.560 Meo only half remembered. It was just strange. It was 0:25:45.600 --> 0:25:49.000 as if the Butcher was testing Meo in the language 0:25:49.040 --> 0:25:52.560 he would understand only if he were someone other than 0:25:52.600 --> 0:25:57.919 Anton Kunzla, if he were saying a double agent. Couldn't 0:25:57.960 --> 0:26:00.600 Suckers be speaking to Meo and a kind of code 0:26:01.080 --> 0:26:04.480 saying I know why you're here, and it isn't to 0:26:04.600 --> 0:26:09.119 make money. Neo couldn't be sure, but he was worried. 0:26:12.480 --> 0:26:16.080 Back in Paris, Josef your Reeve had been busy. It 0:26:16.200 --> 0:26:18.080 was his job to recruit the rest of the team 0:26:18.480 --> 0:26:21.159 that would fly to South America to join Meo and 0:26:21.320 --> 0:26:24.920 carry out the sentence on the butcher body men a 0:26:25.080 --> 0:26:28.720 kill team. When your Reef was done, he dissembled an 0:26:28.800 --> 0:26:32.360 intriguing collection of men. If you saw them walking down 0:26:32.400 --> 0:26:36.399 the street, you wouldn't have thought massad, assassination squad. They 0:26:36.400 --> 0:26:38.720 didn't seem like guys that were going to be sent 0:26:38.880 --> 0:26:42.399 halfway around the world to take care of a notorious murderer. 0:26:44.560 --> 0:26:47.359 First it was your Reeve himself. He was a pretty 0:26:47.440 --> 0:26:50.920 unusual choice for the chief of an intelligence unit. Your 0:26:50.960 --> 0:26:55.200 reef died. I went to Israel to speak with his daughter, Leehy, 0:26:55.520 --> 0:26:58.800 and she described him to me. My father was a 0:26:59.600 --> 0:27:06.159 very sensitive person, full of maybe contradictions, if you can 0:27:06.720 --> 0:27:10.919 say that. On the one hand, he was a bohemian 0:27:11.080 --> 0:27:17.280 person and his best friends were artists in theater players, 0:27:18.280 --> 0:27:21.200 and he had a great sense of humor. You know, 0:27:21.520 --> 0:27:25.159 if you heard his laughter, you couldn't stop love with 0:27:25.359 --> 0:27:31.600 him together, and he saw everything is a very humorous thing. 0:27:32.160 --> 0:27:34.600 But on the other hand, he used to tell me, 0:27:34.880 --> 0:27:38.920 not everything is a joke. I don't think that everything 0:27:39.119 --> 0:27:42.080 is a is a game or a joke. Just take 0:27:42.160 --> 0:27:45.800 it seriously. So on the one hand, he was very serious. 0:27:46.200 --> 0:27:50.240 He was the most reliable person on earth. If you 0:27:50.440 --> 0:27:54.440 were his friend, you could rely on him to the 0:27:54.640 --> 0:27:57.200