Speaker 1: Diversion podcasts. In my daily life. It was quiet interpreted man,
Speaker 1: not particularly from this moment onwards. Your name is Anton
Speaker 1: Kunzla with the better stuff getting used to it. So
Speaker 1: I left many of the Holoc provivors, and most of
Speaker 1: them cannot trip it. When there was a knock of
Speaker 1: the door, all the men line up outside in the
Speaker 1: machine gun was I remember that the second over wins.
Speaker 1: Around that stage, my maigor was too tight against the
Speaker 1: natural negus to abolish the statue of commentation in Germany.
Speaker 1: I heard the names of the friends on the collaborators.
Speaker 1: They used to come to the house chilly because he
Speaker 1: was wearing a leather jacket and turned around over the
Speaker 1: door at a pistol book that of his bad conn
Speaker 1: knew these allegations. Nothing was ever done to bring him
Speaker 1: to judge. I see a mountain and they see that.
Speaker 1: In the end, the smell of the corps guided him
Speaker 1: to the house j She had nightmares. As far as
Speaker 1: I remember myself, there was not a single night of
Speaker 1: the plast quie suspicious that nothing is wrong with this business.
Speaker 1: Mental pH of lower and life with the Brons for
Speaker 1: Golden Future and excellent business. A few episodes ago. I
Speaker 1: started asking listeners for questions. Things you didn't hear in
Speaker 1: the podcast, and we're curious about or others worries. The
Speaker 1: podcast got you thinking of many of your questions prompted
Speaker 1: me to do new research, and I really liked that.
Speaker 1: So I'm going to spend this entire episode answering your
Speaker 1: questions and digging deeper into the issues that you brought up.
Speaker 1: We've got some amazing questions from all over the world.
Speaker 1: My name is Johannah and I'm listening from Toronto, Canada. Hi.
Speaker 1: My name is Mark Lazarus from Chicago, Illinois. Hi. My
Speaker 1: name's rub Timmis Varion from Nitland in New South Wales, Australia. Hello,
Speaker 1: I'm a theory I'm from b and I have some
Speaker 1: of them were from families of Holocaust survivors. My grandmother
Speaker 1: escaped Nazi Germany. For someone like me, history, specifically World
Speaker 1: War Two and the Holocaust, in a sense, it's very
Speaker 1: close to home. Hi. My name is Leah. I'm a
Speaker 1: child of Holocaust survivors. My parents were teenagers when they
Speaker 1: were in the camps. The sporadic nature of the butcher,
Speaker 1: how he would just simply turn up and execute someone
Speaker 1: that is in the story of what my grandpa tall.
Speaker 1: It was a very similar experience, and a lot of
Speaker 1: them made me think about aspects of Massad's Zuker's mission
Speaker 1: that hadn't really occurred to me. Was this sort of
Speaker 1: process or document used because of legal, judicial or massad
Speaker 1: internal policy reasons? Did the Massad allow families of these
Speaker 1: monsters to continue living in luxury? There was even one
Speaker 1: from a guy who worked with the soldier with a
Speaker 1: very shady past. Yeah, I met and worked with a
Speaker 1: stocky German guy that I was told by the locals
Speaker 1: had been a member of the s S. Over the
Speaker 1: next few months, Unta and I became friends. So thanks
Speaker 1: to everyone who emailed us. I really appreciate your interest.
Speaker 1: I'm even talty and this as good Assassin's hunting the Butcher.
Speaker 1: You made a comment that really just kind of sent
Speaker 1: chills down my spine. My friends and I loved the podcast,
Speaker 1: and it has sparked a lot of debate amongst my friends.
Speaker 1: I am just really curious to understand how people would
Speaker 1: claim that he's innocent. I remember I literally posed the podcast,
Speaker 1: took off my headphones and I was just golf smacked.
Speaker 1: Final those are cool, but I didn't think anything like
Speaker 1: that happened in real life having discussions over family dinners.
Speaker 1: So it's been a great, great ride. Episode twelve new
Speaker 1: questions and conspiracies, So onto your questions. The first one
Speaker 1: comes from James mcinness. I'd like to know the background
Speaker 1: of the family of the butcher. How did I time
Speaker 1: believing with such a boy? Where they accepting what? Who
Speaker 1: he want? What? Loving on this guy? Where the pride?
Speaker 1: Where they just a general background of hound I grew
Speaker 1: up this person. I was curious about the same thing James.
Speaker 1: I did find one news article in a Latvian newspaper
Speaker 1: from before the war. It talks about Suckers being arrested
Speaker 1: for publicly whipping one of his sons, and it condemned
Speaker 1: him for being so brutal to one of his own children.
Speaker 1: There aren't a lot of details in the story, but
Speaker 1: apparently he became angry at the boy and started beating him.
Speaker 1: So it's clear Suckers had a serious temper, and the
Speaker 1: article indicates was turned on his family at least once.
Speaker 1: But to be fair, after his death, Zucker's family defended
Speaker 1: him to the end. They did interviews in the Brazilian
Speaker 1: press talking about his good qualities, how he was a
Speaker 1: loving father and a patriot. They talked about pain of
Speaker 1: his execution and how they felt an innocent man had
Speaker 1: been targeted. It's clear that the assassination was a deeply
Speaker 1: traumatic experience for them. So to answer your question as
Speaker 1: best I can, I think his family did love him.
Speaker 1: They were certainly very loyal to his memory for decades afterward.
Speaker 1: I hope that answers the question onto the next one. Hi.
Speaker 1: My name is joh Hannah and I'm listening from Toronto, Canada.
Speaker 1: My friends and I love the podcast and it has
Speaker 1: sparked a lot of debate amongst my friend group, and
Speaker 1: we've settled on two questions that we couldn't quite answer ourselves.
Speaker 1: The first is did East Germany have a statute of
Speaker 1: limitations for Nazi war crimes? The book in the podcast
Speaker 1: focuses a lot on West Germany, and because my friends
Speaker 1: and I are a bunch of history majors, we've read
Speaker 1: a lot about Nazis having a place in Easterman government,
Speaker 1: which kind of speaks to how denotification was attempted in
Speaker 1: West Germany and top ranking officials had escaped it. Perhaps
Speaker 1: to the d DR, Nazis having folks come US seats
Speaker 1: very likely would influence Nazi legal standings. So did the
Speaker 1: d DR have a statute or any punishment for Nazis
Speaker 1: at all, and did that punishment have a time limit.
Speaker 1: The second is if Musad had a presence noticeable or
Speaker 1: not in East Germany, and if they tried to sway
Speaker 1: Israeli DDR or really Israeli USSR relations through espionage. Thanks
Speaker 1: so much. We're really enjoying the book as a group
Speaker 1: right now and the podcast is fantastic. Thank you so much.
Speaker 1: Abon karaj Hi Johanna, really good questions. Thanks. The East
Speaker 1: German part of the story is really interesting. East Germany
Speaker 1: was under the control of the Soviet Union at the time,
Speaker 1: and their response to the Nazi question was often purely political.
Speaker 1: They did not recognize the Statute of Limitations when it
Speaker 1: came to Nazi crimes, and in fact, they played up
Speaker 1: the failure of West Germany to prosecute Nazi atrocities that
Speaker 1: had happened during the war. So the West German Statute
Speaker 1: of Limitations became a weapon, a tool for East Germany
Speaker 1: and the USSR. It was the Soviet Union's position that
Speaker 1: they had been the key to defeating the Third Reich
Speaker 1: and they had been far harsher on Nazi criminals than
Speaker 1: governments in the West had been. There was truth in
Speaker 1: both of those claims, and the USSR used that wedge
Speaker 1: very effectively to embarrass the West. They claimed the moral
Speaker 1: high ground when it came to x Nazis. They carried
Speaker 1: out some show trials and would occasionally release the file
Speaker 1: of an x Nazi living in the West who done
Speaker 1: horrific things simply to gain an edge in the Cold War.
Speaker 1: But after the fall of the Berlin Wall, it became
Speaker 1: clear that East Germany hadn't been as forthcoming as it
Speaker 1: could have been. Researchers found a huge number of files
Speaker 1: on Nazi criminals that the East Germans had never released
Speaker 1: for various reasons. Those files could have led to many
Speaker 1: more prosecutions of killers and torturers. So even though East
Speaker 1: Germany claimed to be the more righteous, it turned out
Speaker 1: that they had just as many skeletons in the closet
Speaker 1: as West Germany did. As far as Joanna's second question,
Speaker 1: did Massad have any presence in East Germany, the answer
Speaker 1: is little to none. The two countries never had diplomatic relations,
Speaker 1: and they never exchanged ambassadors or maintained embassies in each
Speaker 1: other's countries. Berlin was a hot spot for American and
Speaker 1: British spies. That's where John Lecare's first novel was set,
Speaker 1: but much less so for Massad. The main issue for
Speaker 1: the Israelis was probably that East German politics were largely
Speaker 1: being directed from Moscow, so why not do your spying
Speaker 1: in Moscow? East Germany and the other satellites weren't where
Speaker 1: the action was from Massad, they had much more pressing
Speaker 1: issues to address than what was happening on both sides
Speaker 1: of the Berlin Wall. Another question that arrived by email. Hi,
Speaker 1: my name is Jason Friend from Virginia in the United States.
Speaker 1: I have a question about MEO and other spies living
Speaker 1: in Europe. How would they keep their cover in a
Speaker 1: place like Paris without the French government knowing? Or did
Speaker 1: they know? Yeah? Perceptive Jason. Let me start with the
Speaker 1: second part and then work back. Basically, do countries know
Speaker 1: that their allies are spying on them? They do? The
Speaker 1: basic rule is that a spy living in a friendly
Speaker 1: country is supposed to only have contact with his counterparts.
Speaker 1: That means a CIA officer living in London is allowed
Speaker 1: to have lunch with an officer from m I six,
Speaker 1: the British spy agency. They're also allowed to have joint
Speaker 1: operations with friendly spy agencies that the two countries have
Speaker 1: a similar objective in mind. They might partner up on
Speaker 1: a mission. But that's where things are supposed to stop.
Speaker 1: You're not supposed to conduct espionage on your allies, but
Speaker 1: of course governments do all the time. Right now, my country,
Speaker 1: the US is spying on several of our closest allies,
Speaker 1: including France and Germany and the UK, and they're spying
Speaker 1: on us. We want to know what our governments are
Speaker 1: planning in counter terrorism, in technology and trade, not what
Speaker 1: they're saying publicly, what they're actually planning on doing. Now,
Speaker 1: as far as the first part of Jason's question, how
Speaker 1: did MIO and the others operate in France? Often spies
Speaker 1: work under the cover of a diplomatic mission. Embassies are
Speaker 1: hotbeds for intelligence officers who have a fake title and
Speaker 1: a fake job that allows them to spend most of
Speaker 1: their time on espionage. But me and the others did
Speaker 1: not have diplomat to cover. They were simply Israeli citizens
Speaker 1: who had gotten visas to stay in Europe, so they
Speaker 1: had to lie low, pretend to be ordinary business people
Speaker 1: or visitors who loved Paris so much that they decided
Speaker 1: to live there. Whether the French government knew about their activities,
Speaker 1: that's a fascinating question. Most spy agencies direct their counter
Speaker 1: intelligence efforts at their enemies. Keeping track of agents from
Speaker 1: your allies isn't a top priority unless they screw up
Speaker 1: in a spectacular way and embarrass themselves, or if they
Speaker 1: steal a major military secret or piece of hardware. Then
Speaker 1: all bets are off. Friends then have to act like enemies,
Speaker 1: and spies are sometimes expelled from the country in question.
Speaker 1: My best guests is that your Eve and the others
Speaker 1: kept their heads down, obeyed the laws of France, and
Speaker 1: had basic covers as some kind of business men. France
Speaker 1: had bigger fish to fry in the mid sixties. I
Speaker 1: doubt they were overly concerned about a few massad agents
Speaker 1: using Paris as a base of operations, so long as
Speaker 1: they kept under the radar. The next question came in
Speaker 1: by email from Garrett Davies. Hi, Stephen, I just had
Speaker 1: a question regarding the statute of limitations in relation to Zookers,
Speaker 1: which you may be able to shed some light on.
Speaker 1: I was wondering why the German law would apply to
Speaker 1: Zookers even though he was a Latvian citizen. Could he
Speaker 1: still not have been prosecuted in his home country. That's
Speaker 1: a great point. I've often wondered why Massad chose a
Speaker 1: Latvian to go after instead of a German. After all,
Speaker 1: it was the Third Reich that triggered the Holocaust, not
Speaker 1: the Latvians, or the Lithuanians or the Poles. So why
Speaker 1: target Zookers, a guy from this small country that didn't
Speaker 1: play a big part in the war. In my research
Speaker 1: into the possible targets for the mission, their nationality never
Speaker 1: came up. It was always about two things, the seriousness
Speaker 1: of their crimes and the ability of Massad to locate
Speaker 1: them quickly. But I do think their nationality played a part.
Speaker 1: Think about it. If Massad went and assassinated the German,
Speaker 1: what would that have done to public opinion in Berlin
Speaker 1: and elsewhere. Killing someone's countrymen, even if he's done horrible things,
Speaker 1: is never popular. If Massad had assassinated a prominent German,
Speaker 1: they probably would have doomed the mission. There would have
Speaker 1: been a huge public backlash, and it would have affected
Speaker 1: not only the Statute of Limitations, but a whole range
Speaker 1: of issues between Germany and Israel, war reparations, trade, the
Speaker 1: list goes on and on. My theory is that it
Speaker 1: was just too dangerous, too counterproductive to go after a German.
Speaker 1: The bad news for Sukers was that Latvia wasn't a
Speaker 1: powerful nation. In fact, after the Soviet annexation of the country,
Speaker 1: Latvia didn't even exist in so the consequences for killing
Speaker 1: a Latvian would be much less severe. You could illustrate
Speaker 1: to Germans the kind of monsters that were still out
Speaker 1: there without actually killing one of their citizens. Was the
Speaker 1: best of both worlds. Hi, my name is Cameron. I'm
Speaker 1: a big fan of the podcast. I actually got some
Speaker 1: impatient following along that I ended up buying the book.
Speaker 1: Mew and the team seemed to have a formalized judgment
Speaker 1: document or speech or some sort of written piece that
Speaker 1: they intend to read to Zookers at his execution. It's
Speaker 1: betrayed as a sort of all encompassing legal document that
Speaker 1: functions as the predetermined outcome. In opinion of judge Drury
Speaker 1: into ex cutioner. Was this sort of process or document
Speaker 1: used because of legal judicial or MASSAD internal policy reasons?
Speaker 1: Who wrote the judgment? And at what point in the
Speaker 1: government decision making process is this judgment made and written out?
Speaker 1: Like did the high level government officials that named zookers
Speaker 1: for execution? Right? This did Massad? Or did MEO or
Speaker 1: yuive themselves? Right? It? Was this a common occurrence in
Speaker 1: MASSAD operations or in government or state sponsored assassinations at
Speaker 1: the time. Was it a formality or a requirement? And
Speaker 1: was this done for non Nazi related MASSAD operations like
Speaker 1: those against the plotters of the Munich Olympic attacks in
Speaker 1: nineteen seventy two. Did the document have legal ramifications in Israeli,
Speaker 1: Uruguayan or Brazilian international law? Thanks for any responses, Thanks Cameron.
Speaker 1: I had never actually thought about that part of the mission,
Speaker 1: and it's a tough one to answer. Massad is usually
Speaker 1: a bit of a black box. It's very secretive as
Speaker 1: our most by agencies, hard to tell who did what,
Speaker 1: so I'm not sure who wrote the verdict. I suspect
Speaker 1: it was someone at MASSAD, maybe even Joseph. Your Reeve
Speaker 1: was the head of the unit carrying out the operation
Speaker 1: and had the responsibility for all of its tactics. If
Speaker 1: Meo had written the verdict, I think he would have
Speaker 1: talked about it, so my guests, and it's only a
Speaker 1: guess is that yr Reeve, as the team boss, sat
Speaker 1: down and wrote it out. As to why, I think
Speaker 1: it's clear it wasn't for legal reasons or judicial ones.
Speaker 1: It certainly wasn't a Massad policy. In fact, I've never
Speaker 1: heard of them doing this again in any of their
Speaker 1: other operations. It was a combination of two things, clarity
Speaker 1: and public relations. Massad knew the body was going to
Speaker 1: be discovered. Of course, they wanted it to be discovered,
Speaker 1: and they wanted it known that Zukers didn't die in
Speaker 1: a business deal on wrong, that he wasn't the victim
Speaker 1: of some home invasion or robbery. It was important for
Speaker 1: the mission that Sucre's death retied clearly to his crimes.
Speaker 1: The verdict would also serve as a warning to other
Speaker 1: Nazi criminals. Massad wanted them to live in fear. The
Speaker 1: second part was public relations. Massad knew that news about
Speaker 1: the killing would be a sensation, and they wanted the
Speaker 1: verdict to get into the news reports. The verdict was
Speaker 1: really aimed at the German public. These were the man's
Speaker 1: crimes carried out under the Nazi regime. Look at the
Speaker 1: life Sucers was living, look at the atrocities he committed.
Speaker 1: They were saying something's wrong here. Sucers and thousands of
Speaker 1: others never faced a court of justice, and if the
Speaker 1: statute passes, they never will. So it was intended to
Speaker 1: jab at the conscience of Germans and other countries who
Speaker 1: could put pressure on Germany. Hi, my name is Mimi.
Speaker 1: I'm from San Francisco, UM. I have a question about
Speaker 1: something mentioned in one of the early episodes about the
Speaker 1: Zookers having supporters. I am just really curious to understand
Speaker 1: how people would claim that he's innocent with all the
Speaker 1: testimonials from victims that you have and have shared, is
Speaker 1: there any evidence pointing to innocence? Thanks by thanks me me.
Speaker 1: I've had other people asked me about this, so I'm
Speaker 1: glad you sent the question in. Those who support Herbert
Speaker 1: seekers fall somewhere along the spectrum. I think there are
Speaker 1: a few hardcore anti Semites and Holocaust deniers who see
Speaker 1: the focus on perpetrators as being some kind of conspiracy.
Speaker 1: There are let and nationalists who say that Suckers may
Speaker 1: have done something during the war, but nothing has been proven,
Speaker 1: and there are many people who say that Latvian suffering
Speaker 1: before and after the war has never gotten equal time
Speaker 1: with the Holocaust, So why should they spend time on
Speaker 1: Sukers crimes when other crimes are being ignored. We talked
Speaker 1: about this a bit in episode ten. I think the
Speaker 1: big issue is the lack of a trial. Some supporters
Speaker 1: brings up again and again they compare it to a
Speaker 1: normal criminal case. We might have five or ten people
Speaker 1: saying that a suspect committed a crime, but those witnesses
Speaker 1: need to be interrogated, their timelines need to be examined,
Speaker 1: and the suspects alibi needs to be checked out. It's
Speaker 1: all the mechanics of due process that they feel are missing,
Speaker 1: and that's what makes them stop short of calling him
Speaker 1: a war criminal. There were some testimonies about Suckers that
Speaker 1: were almost certainly adjurated. There are stories of him impaling
Speaker 1: babies on his bayonet, and frankly, I don't believe that
Speaker 1: ever happened. Those kinds of accounts do pop up here
Speaker 1: and there among Holocaust survivors with human nature. I think
Speaker 1: that's inevitable. A huge crime was committed and people want
Speaker 1: to testify to how horrible it really was. For me,
Speaker 1: the many testimonies that are authentic, along with the fact
Speaker 1: that other commandos also acknowledged Suker's crimes and his behavior
Speaker 1: after the war, makes me convinced that Sukers collaborated with
Speaker 1: the Nazis and the murder of thousands of Jews. If
Speaker 1: you've done the research as I have, the evidence is
Speaker 1: just overwhelming. The next question comes to us from David
Speaker 1: Rochester in Surrey in the UK. My name is David
Speaker 1: Rochester and I've been listening to your podcast, Hunting the Butcher.
Speaker 1: I'm not finished it yet, almost don't want it to end.
Speaker 1: It is just brilliant and so gripping and brutal at
Speaker 1: the same time. But one of the things that I
Speaker 1: would love to get a bit more background on is
Speaker 1: the fact that when he went to South America he
Speaker 1: had a young girl, a Jewish girl with him. What
Speaker 1: happened to her, how and why was she there? But
Speaker 1: more intriguing is a bit of background on his wife,
Speaker 1: because the whole thing sounds a bit bizarre that he
Speaker 1: could do that with his children and his wife and
Speaker 1: his wife, Is there any background at all on on
Speaker 1: the relationship because he was clearly a tough and I
Speaker 1: would assume extremely brutal and individual. Um. So, so that's
Speaker 1: really well. I would like to to hear a bit
Speaker 1: more on so. Um. Thank you very much for a
Speaker 1: fantastic podcast, and hopefully you will give me a response.
Speaker 1: Thank you, bye bye. I can answer one part of
Speaker 1: this question better than the other. Milda Zuker's wife is
Speaker 1: a bit of a mystery. From all accounts, she was
Speaker 1: a loyal and loving wife and at least publicly never
Speaker 1: questioned what Suckers did. Neo and his brief mentions of
Speaker 1: her and Zone Writings describes mild Suckers as somewhat timid
Speaker 1: and not a strong character in the marriage. Maybe Sucker
Speaker 1: scared her, or maybe she just loved him, maybe both,
Speaker 1: We just don't know. As for Miriam, yeah, it's a
Speaker 1: crazy story. After Zukers was exposed as a war criminal,
Speaker 1: it seems that the two rarely oak. I heard that
Speaker 1: her family didn't want her to be in touch with Suckers.
Speaker 1: They didn't want her to get involved any deeper than
Speaker 1: she already was. When I wrote my book The Good Assassin.
Speaker 1: I did get in touch with Miriam's daughter, Helga, who
Speaker 1: lived in the US at the time. She told me
Speaker 1: that her mother rarely spoke about Suckers or the war,
Speaker 1: and her guests was that it was just too painful.
Speaker 1: Miriam lost many loved ones in the Holocaust and just
Speaker 1: wanted to move on with her life. But one thing
Speaker 1: is clear. When she was called upon by Jewish leaders
Speaker 1: in Brazil, she backed up Sucre's story that he'd rescued
Speaker 1: her during the war and had hit her from Nazi soldiers. Subsequently,
Speaker 1: I uncovered an update to the story that's just wild. Helga,
Speaker 1: Miriam's daughter, actually traveled back to Latvia in two thousand
Speaker 1: nineteen to search for her family's history There. In Latvia,
Speaker 1: she met with Suker's daughter Tonya and thanked the family
Speaker 1: for saving her mother. She went up to the attic
Speaker 1: in the Zuker's farmhouse where Miriam hid during the war years.
Speaker 1: One day, a passer by apparently spotted Miriam looking out
Speaker 1: the window. That sighting placed the Zookers in danger. If
Speaker 1: the Nazis found out a Jewish girl was living there,
Speaker 1: there'd beheld a pay. It probably wouldn't have mattered that
Speaker 1: Zukers was working with Nazi troops either, So Zukers had
Speaker 1: Miriam dye her hair blonde and passed her off as
Speaker 1: a teacher who was instructing the Suckers children. That's how
Speaker 1: she made it through the war disguised as a gentile.
Speaker 1: So it's complex. Miriam was clearly grateful to Zukers the
Speaker 1: testimony of her being kept as a kind of sex slave.
Speaker 1: She never addressed that publicly. It seems to me that
Speaker 1: she chose to remember the good things that Zukers had
Speaker 1: done for her and to let the other stuff go.
Speaker 1: It's a choice that many Holocaust survivors had to make. Hi.
Speaker 1: My name is Leah. I'm a child of Holocaust survivors.
Speaker 1: My parents were teenagers when they were in the camps.
Speaker 1: My father actually escaped and became a partisan. The only
Speaker 1: surviving member of either family was my maternal grandmother. So
Speaker 1: my question is when they would hunt Nazis. A lot
Speaker 1: of these guys were able to stock away quite a
Speaker 1: bit of money from all the things they stole and looted,
Speaker 1: and their families lived quite well. So I wondered did
Speaker 1: the Massad allow the families of these monsters to continue
Speaker 1: li in luxury, or were any of these things taken
Speaker 1: from them, or were the families touched in any way?
Speaker 1: Was there any retribution in taking out any of these
Speaker 1: bastard's families. I guess that's a few questions. Thanks so
Speaker 1: much and I love your podcast. Hi Lah, thanks for
Speaker 1: the question. The short answer is no, Massad didn't concern
Speaker 1: itself with recovering things stolen from Jewish families during the war.
Speaker 1: There were just too many other things that they identified
Speaker 1: as more urgent and that just wasn't their mission anyway.
Speaker 1: But it doesn't mean that ex Nazis always kept the
Speaker 1: things that they stole from Jewish victims. That part of
Speaker 1: the Holocaust story has been left to the lawyers. There
Speaker 1: have been many cases of Jewish survivors or their families
Speaker 1: going to court to recover paintings or home or other valuables.
Speaker 1: It often takes years, if not decades, but many survivors
Speaker 1: have won their cases and gotten back art with many millions.
Speaker 1: But of course there are thousands of cases that were
Speaker 1: never pursued, and we're justice never had a chance to prevail.
Speaker 1: The next and last question is fascinating. Give it a listen.
Speaker 1: In the mid nineteen seventies, I was a young English
Speaker 1: engineer working for the Algerian National Oil Industry sound a
Speaker 1: track at skeet to Algeria. There I met and worked
Speaker 1: with a stocky German guy that I was told by
Speaker 1: the locals had been a member of the s S. Gunta,
Speaker 1: who was in his early sixties, had a scar on
Speaker 1: the under side of his left arm, and after working
Speaker 1: with him for a few weeks, he confirmed to me
Speaker 1: that he had in fact been a member of the
Speaker 1: s S and at the end of the war he
Speaker 1: had joined the French Foreign Legion and had been based
Speaker 1: in Algeria. After an unspecified term of service, Gunta had
Speaker 1: been given a new identity by France and could live
Speaker 1: a normal life. Over the next few months, Gunta and
Speaker 1: I became friends, although he refused to discuss his earlier life.
Speaker 1: My question is is it true France offered s S
Speaker 1: and other war criminals immunity from prosecution in return for
Speaker 1: the service in the French Foreign Legion. I'd actually never
Speaker 1: heard about this, so I had to do a little digging,
Speaker 1: and it appears that Gunter just might have been telling
Speaker 1: the truth. Here's two things I learned in my research.
Speaker 1: The French Foreign Legion has always been popular with Germans
Speaker 1: for reasons too complex to go into here. In fact,
Speaker 1: a lot of Germans joined the French Foreign Legion before
Speaker 1: and during World War Two and actually went off to
Speaker 1: fight the Nazis in North Africa. Because of this, books
Speaker 1: about the Legion were burned in German cities and towns,
Speaker 1: and the Nazi propaganda minister Joseph Goebbels even announced that
Speaker 1: young German men were being hypnotized into joining crazy. I
Speaker 1: had no idea that this ever happened. The second thing
Speaker 1: I learned until quite recently, the Legion didn't require you
Speaker 1: to reveal your identity when you joined up. You didn't
Speaker 1: have to give your real name, your real nationality, or
Speaker 1: provide any papers at all about your background. The Legion,
Speaker 1: of course, became a destination for men running away from
Speaker 1: all kinds of things, bad marriages, horrible crimes, even genocide.
Speaker 1: So it's highly possible that Gunter, looking for a way
Speaker 1: out to avoid prosecution, joined the Legion under a fake name.
Speaker 1: One statistic I saw in my research about the men
Speaker 1: in the Legion from to nineteen fifty four had German roots,
Speaker 1: most of them to fight for France in the First
Speaker 1: Into China War. In Vietnam, over seventy two thousand legionnaires
Speaker 1: fought under the French flag and over ten thousand of
Speaker 1: them were killed there. So here's what might have happened.
Speaker 1: Gunter was an s S member who needed a new life.
Speaker 1: He joins the Legion after v E Day, and most
Speaker 1: likely he gets sent to Vietnam. He serves there under
Speaker 1: an assumed name, fighting for French interests, and after a
Speaker 1: period of three years, any member of the Legion is
Speaker 1: eligible to apply for French citizenship. That's the law. If
Speaker 1: Gunter performed well, he would easily have gotten a residency
Speaker 1: permit and then full nationality. So if Gunter was telling
Speaker 1: the truth, it would be going too far to say
Speaker 1: that France recruited him and gave him a new identity.
Speaker 1: But it's likely that he joined the Legion under a
Speaker 1: fake name and eventually was able to become a French citizen.
Speaker 1: With no record of his past on the books, Gunter
Speaker 1: found a way to watch his record clean. He escaped
Speaker 1: responsibility the terrible things he probably did during the war.
Speaker 1: All it took, most likely was risking his life and
Speaker 1: another deadly conflict. Half a world away from home, Zookers
Speaker 1: chose an easier route. He went to Brazil, water skied
Speaker 1: and built a business. He too, came very close to
Speaker 1: escaping his past. If it hadn't been for the handful
Speaker 1: of men and women that you've met in this series,
Speaker 1: I really think he would have gotten away with it.
Speaker 1: I love the show, really, really fantastic. I just have
Speaker 1: to know, are you guys doing another season? I love
Speaker 1: for you guys to make a season two, and I
Speaker 1: think it'd be cool with you guys did it in
Speaker 1: the Vietnam War era, just because my grandpa wasn't the war.
Speaker 1: Absolutely love if you did a season two. Season one
Speaker 1: was so engaging, so awesome. One question that I keep
Speaker 1: hearing is will there be a season two of Good
Speaker 1: Assassins and what will it be about. The answers are yes,
Speaker 1: and I'm not sure yet. We're looking at a few
Speaker 1: espionage operations that have always intrigued me, but we want
Speaker 1: to find something that's just as suspenseful and complex as
Speaker 1: Meal's operation, and then we'll do the kind of deep
Speaker 1: dive that you guys seem to appreciate. So there will
Speaker 1: definitely be a season two of the Good Assassin's podcast,
Speaker 1: and you should look out for it some time later
Speaker 1: in the year. So that's it for now. I really
Speaker 1: hope you enjoyed listening to Good Assassins Season one as
Speaker 1: much as I enjoyed making it. If we get more
Speaker 1: questions in, I'll be happy to answer them in a
Speaker 1: future episode, and I hope you'll keep an eye out
Speaker 1: for more spies and more Cloak and Dagger in season two.
Speaker 1: Good Assassins. Hunting the Butcher is a production of Diversion
Speaker 1: Podcasts in association with I Heart Radio. This season is
Speaker 1: written and hosted by Stephen Talti, produced and directed by
Speaker 1: Scott Waxman and Jacob Bronstein. Executive producers Scott Waxman and
Speaker 1: Mark Francis, Story editing by Jacob Bronstein, Theme music by
Speaker 1: Tyler Cash, Archival research by Adam Shapiro. Thanks to Oran
Speaker 1: Rosenbaum at U t A.