April 9, 2021 • 42 mins
The spy transforms into his cover identity. He will travel to Brazil, where his assassination target is living, and attempt to lure him into a trap. If his cover fails, Herbert Cukurs — The Butcher of Latvia — may kill him. But before Cukurs could be placed on a kill list, and before Mossad could begin to track him down, Cukurs’ pursuers had to be sure he was the right guy. Was this really the Butcher of Latvia?
“Good Assassins: Hunting the Butcher" came out of Stephan Talty's work on a related book, The Good Assassin. Explore other parts of this story in the book: Buy The Good Assassin
An organization called the World Jewish Congress announced that the Butcher of Latvia had been found and was living in Brazil. And, despite the growing international indifference toward the hunt for Nazis, it had an effect. There were headlines in Brazilian newspapers. Cukurs’ business was ruined. He had to move several times to avoid angry protestors.
Eventually Cukurs moves to São Paolo, running another small boat rental business. This was not what Cukurs had imagined for himself. His dreams of building a glorious new life in Brazil had been shattered. The Jews had seen to that. He was bitter, paranoid and lonely. Cukurs hoped for a grand third act to his life. He believed in himself. He just had to convince the world that he’d been misunderstood in order to get his fame and the money back.
The Israeli government kept a list of important Nazi criminals who’d escaped justice. We don’t know how many people were on it, but we do know a few of the more famous names: Adolf Eichmann, one of the main architects of the Holocaust. Mossad captured him in 1960, put him on trial, and executed him. Dr. Josef Mengele, known as “The Angel of Death,” who’d murdered Jewish children at Auschwitz and had conducted ghastly experiments on Jewish prisoners, was high on the list. Herbert Cukurs had made the list too.
In the early 1960s, the Israelis became concerned about a possible amnesty for Nazis. The German government was considering giving a free pass to Nazi murderers who hadn’t been indicted yet. The Israelis wanted to stop this from happening and they had decided to go after a Nazi. A few months later, our Mossad agent, Mio, was getting ready to assume the role of a lifetime. He had his target. Now he had to prepare to meet him.
He faced a confident, tough-minded man. One who wouldn’t go quietly. Mio had to plan the mission without explicit directions from headquarters. For that, Mio had to get inside the Butcher’s head, find out what he wanted, discover his weak points. Mio booked a flight to Brazil for September 11th, 1964. He was ready to meet the Butcher.
This episode contains interviews with Dr. Sarah Valente, visiting assisstant professor at The Ackerman Center at The University of Texas at Dallas. Dr. Valente studies the legacy of World War II and the Holocaust in Brazil.
This episode contains excerpts from tapes contained in the papers of Jack Anderson, the legendary investigative reporter. Anderson’s papers reside at George Washington University's GW Libraries.
“Good Assassins: Hunting the Butcher” is written and hosted by Stephan Talty. Produced and directed by Scott Waxman and Jacob Bronstein. Executive Producers: Scott Waxman and Mark Francis. Story editing by Jacob Bronstein with editorial direction from Scott Waxman and Mangesh Hattikudur. Editing, mixing, and sound design by Mark Francis. With the voices of: Nick Afka Thomas, Omri Anghel, Andrew Polk, Mindy Escobar-Leanse, Steve Routman, and Stefan Rudnicki. Theme music by Tyler Cash. Archival research by Adam Shapiro. Thanks to Kevin Anderson & the Anderson family for permission t
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:06):
Diversion podcasts. A note this episode contains descriptions of graphic
violence and scenes of genocide. Listener's discretion is advised. Herbert
(00:28):
Zuker's The Butcher of Latvia, had made a terrible mistake.
He'd agreed to be profiled in a major Brazilian magazine, Okrauzero.
The article called from the Baltics to Brazil hit newsstands.
J I wanted to talk to someone who could put
(00:50):
this article in context for me, someone who could explain
Zuker's popularity and has adopted home of Brazil. I am
Dr saraphile To. I am a visiting assistant professor currently
at the Ackerman Center for Holocaust Studies at the University
of Texas at Dallas. Dr Valenti studies the legacy of
World War Two in the Holocaust in Brazil. In other words,
(01:13):
she definitely studies Herbert Sukers. I asked Dr Valenti about
this magazine article. Suckers allowed himself to be interviewed for
She explained how it completely whitewashes Zuker's Nazi passed. The
article talks about the family story, how they were poor
war refugees. It identifies them as war refugees who all
(01:35):
of the sudden four years are not massively successful. It
talks about his beautiful Arian children literally against the backdrop
of the famous sugirl of mountains of Rio de Janato,
and this article really praises him and how quickly it says,
you know, a family from Latvia flees from the horrors
of war lands in Rio on Carnival Sunday, sells a
(01:57):
small camera and rebuilds their future. It was five pages long,
and it showed the beautiful life that the Zuker's family
had carved out for themselves since leaving Latvia and settling
in Rio. The Zookers, they look like actors in the
nineteen fifties speech movie. One of the things that really resonates,
especially when we see the descriptions of the children and
(02:20):
the photographs of the children, especially the photograph of the daughter.
She has this kind of little bikini top on and
she's this beautiful girl with blond hair. The family is quite,
you know, physically, esthetically speaking, beautiful, right. There is something
that is desirable about their look, their ability to raise
(02:40):
themselves up, and they're great contributions to the country. And
the description is very much this idea of you know,
these are the kinds of people we want in this country.
Herbert Sukers came across as a go getter who built
up a nice business from nothing. He is described as
this embodiment of tenacity, this very industrious man who is
(03:03):
bringing new type of technology for water skiing, which is
something that Brazilians had only seen in films at that time,
and here he is creating this kind of new recreational sport.
But the article went further. It said that Zukers should
be an inspiration. Here was a guy who would face
war and exile, gone through extreme poverty, and yet was
(03:25):
succeeding when all seems lost. The story read the human
species can find within itself the same energies and ability
to forget the past and reshape its own destiny. It
was such a great story. Who was going to prove
it wrong? Well? By this time, years after World War Two,
(03:52):
it was a small group of Nazi hunters who were
on Suckers trail. They knew he was a monster, but
they had to prove bit. What if they announced the
world that they'd located the statistic killer, the Butcher of Latvia,
and then found out it was the wrong guy. It
would set the entire cause back, would be a blow
to Jewish activists everywhere, It would be a disaster. They
(04:16):
had to be right. I'm Stephen Talty and this is
good assassin's hunting the butcher. So the first was so
(04:38):
fine and not end moving forwards, rival the second promine
and large killing. We must thwart this shameful pass, the
end of a trail of blood and horror, the end
of a man whose name will be written in information
every step but to be closer to Joker stock And
(04:58):
it was the inevitive, be face to face and counts.
Episode three, The Man of one Hundred Identities. I don't
know if you're a fan of the nine movie Marathon Man,
(05:19):
but it's one of my favorites. It's about an escape
Nazi played by the famous British actor Lawrence Olivier, who
comes to New York years after the war to retrieve
some diamonds. Of course, he's terrified being discovered and arrested
or even killed, so he goes to great lengths to
ensure that he won't be identified. There's a famous scene
(05:41):
where Olivier's character tortures the young Dustin Hoffman, who plays
the brother of a ci age. The Nazi asked him
over and over, is it safe? Is it safe? It's
one of the great thriller scenes. If you haven't watched it,
you owe it to yourself to check it out. But
(06:02):
Marathon Man also makes an interesting point that relates to
our story. Why is this escaped Nazi character so afraid
of exposing himself? In part, it's because he's in New
York City and he has to go to the neighborhood
known as the Diamond District. The Diamond District is where
thousands of Jewish merchants work even today. In the seventies,
(06:24):
which is when the movie set, it would have been
hundreds of Holocaust survivors there. That's why Olivier's character is
afraid because in a time before the Internet or Google
or social media, the best way of identifying an escape
Nazi was through an eye witness, someone who knew him,
someone who could recognize him. For Nazi on the run,
(06:45):
New York was one of the most dangerous cities in
the world because people there would remember his face and
those people do all the terrible things he'd done. So
in the vie, the Nazi gets the Diamonds and he's
walking down the street. He's feeling good. Then an older
(07:05):
woman spots him. She can't believe what she's seeing, this
monster actually right in front of her. It's like a
memory from a different world. She starts screaming his name.
She follows him, shouting and calling for help, and he
almost gets caught. But this is the difference between the
Diamond District in New York City and Rio, where Zukers
(07:27):
was living at the time. There was a significant Jewish
community in Rio, some of whom Zukers had already met,
but very few Holocaust survivors and almost none from Latvia.
From seven to nineteen fifty, Brazil had a secret policy
that denied visas to Jews fleeing Hitler. It turned away
sixteen thousand requests Jewish refugees who wanted to immigrate there.
(07:52):
The reason simple anti Semitism. This secret policy cut down
on the numbers who eventually were able to make it
to Brazil. That's why the magazine article was such a mistake,
because Okra zero was distributed far and wide, not only
in Brazil but across South America, and the right people
(08:12):
saw it. Or from Zuker's point of view, the wrong people.
But before Zukers could be placed on a list, and
before Massad and Mio could begin to track him down,
zukers pursuers had to be sure he was the right guy.
Was this really the Butcher of Latvia? Maybe there was
(08:32):
another Herbert Sukers. We had nothing to do with the Nazis.
Maybe he was innocent. That was problem number one. Problem
number two had to do with other people. By the
early fifties, the world was starting to lose interests in
Nazi war criminals. The few survivors and activists who saw
the magazine article and thought this might be the Butcher
(08:53):
contacted the authorities. They wrote the British Foreign Office, who
had prosecuted war criminals from Latvia. The British basically blew
them off. The Cold War was underway, the Brits needed
the Germans as allies. They were tired of the whole
issue of the Holocaust. They wanted to move on. There
(09:13):
were a small group of Jewish activists who didn't want
to move on. They couldn't forget what they'd seen during
the war. They dedicated their lives to finding people like
the Butcher. These men and women were scattered around the
globe New York, Vienna, Tel Aviv. A few of them
were famous. Simon Wiesenthal, the legendary Nazi hunter, was the
(09:35):
most famous. That many were anonymous. Beginning in the mid
nineteen forties, they spent their time writing letters to survivors,
poring over archives, searching for clues. One committee of these
Nazi hunters tried to get the Russians interested in the butcher.
After all, Russia had taken over lab Via after the war,
(09:55):
surely they would do something. But the Russians said that
the nation of Latvia no longer existed, so they couldn't
prosecute anyone who committed crimes there. They washed their hands
of the whole deal. So even if the Nazi hunters
proved this guy in Brazil was the butcher, so what
who was going to do something about it? The hunters
(10:16):
decided to cross that bridge when they got to it.
First they had to I D. Suckers confirmed he was
the butcher. Then they would find someone to do something
about it. But again, no Google, no camera phones, how
do you confirm this is the guy? So this is
how they did it. Step one, they had to get
(10:38):
photos of Herbert Suckers before the war. That was the
starting point. But how a young man named Joseph Schneider
went to the central Library in Riga, the capital of Latvia.
We don't know a lot about Schneider. He may have
been part of a Nazi hunter network, or he may
have been asked to do a favor for a friend.
(10:59):
In any case, he went to the aviation section and
started going through the newspaper archives. This was Herbert Suckers
Achilles Heel. Most Nazis had been anonymous before the war,
but Suckers had been a publicity hound. He loved the attention,
so the young researcher started coming across articles on this
brilliant young aviator. And along with the articles were photos.
(11:24):
Here's Herbert Suckers in a leather coat. Is one of
him in profile, smiling and smiling in a plane outside
the plane. There were tons of pictures. Great, but one problem.
There were no xerox machines, not only in the regal
library but anywhere. They weren't on the market yet, and
the photos had to be copied so they could be
(11:44):
compared to ones with the guy in rio. Schneider knew this.
He came prepared. In his hand, he held a small
razor blade, and when the librarian wasn't looking, he bent
down and started cutting first one article, then the next.
He chose the ones with the clearest photos, and when
(12:05):
he was done, he brought the bomb newspapers back to
the desk. Then he walked out. In his pocket was
the crucial evidence. Okay, step one was a success. They
had a baseline photos of the man they knew to
be Herbert Suckers. Now they needed pictures of the guy
in Rio. If the two matched, they had their man.
(12:26):
This part was a little harder. The Nazi hunters wrote
their contexts. In Brazil, a young man named Victor that's
all we know about him his first name, agreed to
try to get a current photo of Zukers. He went
to the dock where the man from the magazine article
was working. He asked the guy, who was wearing an
(12:46):
old captain's hat, if you could take him and his
friend on a boat tour of the lake. The man agreed,
so Victor and his friend and this man who was
maybe Herbert Suckers got into the boat. Victory had brought
along a camera, naturally, and he started taking shots of
the scenery, water, skiers, sailors, he clicked whenever he saw
something interesting, and then he turned and tried to get
(13:08):
a shot of the mystery man and the captain sat
but no, the guy was jumpy. Whenever Victor pointed the
camera in his direction, he would duck down, or turn
his head or look away. Victor could not believe it.
He was taking all these photos and he hadn't gotten
a single decent shot of the guy. He always tried
to hide his face, he later said. Finally, Victor took
(13:30):
a few last shots as the boat returned to the dock.
Once he had left the marina, Victor brought the roles
of film to be developed, and he waited. When the
photos were ready, he picked them up and they were
pretty much as he thought, disappointing, but he sent them
off to the Nazi hunters anyway. He said if they
weren't good enough, he'd go back to the dock, this
(13:51):
time with a movie camera. The Nazi hunters got the photos,
he sorted through them and found one they thought might work.
It showed and Supers in profile as he was ducking
down to avoid the camera. Not ideal, but worth a shot.
The team took Victor's photo and put it next to
one from the Regal Library, and they compared. Within a
(14:12):
few minutes they had an answer. The man in the
Captain's hat and the Latvian Lindburg were the same man.
They found the Butcher of Latvia. M h. If you're
this far into the story, we're assuming you're enjoying Hunting
(14:34):
the Butcher. If you're listening on Apple podcasts, would you
be able to take a minute to give the show
a rating and a review. Just find the show's page
on Apple Podcasts, scrolled down to the section called Ratings
and Reviews and tap one of those purple stars to
give it a rating. Then tapped a little purple link
that says write a review and leave a few words
(14:55):
about what you think of Hunting the Butcher. It really
helps get the word out and let other listeners know
about the podcast. Much appreciated. Now on with the show,
an organization called the World Jewish Congress announced that the
Butcher of Latvia had been found was living in Brazil,
and despite the growing indifference towards the hunt for Nazis,
(15:17):
it had an effect. There were headlines in Brazilian newspapers.
Sucre's business was ruined. He had to move several times
to avoid angry protesters. Eventually he ended up in the
city of sal Paolo, running another small boat rental business.
This was not what Sucers had imagined for himself. His
dreams of building a glorious new life in Brazil. They've
(15:39):
been shattered. The Jews had seen to that. He was bitter, paranoid,
and lonely, but he was still free. The efforts of
the Nazi hunters had failed. They tried to get governments
around the world to pay attention. They'd lobbied Brazil to
deport him. They'd asked America and Great Britain get involved.
(16:01):
Nothing had worked. So in the mid sixties, Zukers was
holding his own He still hoped for a grand third
act of his life. He believed in himself. He just
had to convince the world that he'd been misunderstood in
order to get all the fame and the money back.
That was the dream. We found some incredible tapes from
(16:26):
a man named Jack Anderson. Anderson was a legendary and
controversial investigative reporter who died in two thousand five. Anderson's
papers resided at George Washington University, and his personal archive
of recordings have just recently been on sealed. This will
be the first time anyone has heard these tapes, and
(16:47):
they're striking. I'm an American newspaper man that just want
to be interested in talking to some of these Nazis
and hearing their side of the story. Anderson traveled to
Brazil in nineteen sixty to track down Nazi fugitives for
an article he eventually published in Parade magazine, and that
(17:08):
was his cover. Occurred to me that if they found Aikman,
there are probably other war criminals down there in hiding.
In fact, I knew there were other war criminals, and
I thought it might even be possible to find a few.
And I thought it would be a great story for Parade.
So told Parade I was gonna go down and look
for him. It sounds unbelievable to just hop on a
(17:29):
plane and go interview Nazis, but Anderson was good at
his job, and he met a crucial contact at the
airport immediately upon his arrival. I felt that there was
a stroke of luck, and if I do say so myself,
good reporting that I got him in a hurry. I
just sold him on the idea that I was a
friendly newspaper man who would like to talk to some
(17:49):
of them. He got talking, he explained how they operated. Mario,
as I remember, was his name. His first name you're
taking wasn't his real name. He had taken on a
Brazilian name, had been a major in the s s
and Uh was living a different life now as a
(18:13):
airline employee. This lower level management guy, Anderson wanted a
big exclusive and he came prepared. Before his trip. He
contacted Simon Wiesenthal, and Visenthal sent him reams of research
on all the Nazi fugitives he thought might be living there.
But Anderson was focused, and he made a list of
(18:34):
the most infamous Nazis still at large. He wanted to
find the next Aikman, and this man he was sitting with,
Mario seemed to know them all. Told me about Mangle.
He knew all about Mangley, but he said after the
kidnapping him Mangley was in Buenos Aires in Argentina, and
new right where he was said that he had fled
(18:57):
though after the Aikemen kidnapping. That was after the big ones,
and and he wasn't very helpful on any of the
big ones. They were either inaccessible or they had disappeared
after the Aikman had scared them all into hiding. He
said that they had a ring of a rather loose
association of kind of co conspirators, people who were in
(19:22):
the same boat and therefore helped one another. And then
he told me about He said they had hideout deep
in Brazil where they would go when they felt threatened
when they were on the run. Anderson was hitting a
wall after the very high profile kidnapping and trial of Aikman.
Ex Nazis were more paranoid than ever. After all, they
(19:44):
weren't hiding. It made sense that they wouldn't want to
talk to a quote unquote American newspaperman, no matter how
friendly he claimed to be. But there was this one
Nazi Mario brought up who sounded different from the rest.
This Nazi wasn't on Anderson's radar and his name didn't
(20:04):
even ring a bell. That led him to tell me
about Suckers, who had three seaplanes on the lake outside
of South Apollo. He said he ran his sightseeing business there,
but he said he's very useful to us because he
can fly our people into the interior. So Suckers was
(20:25):
a guy who flew who was a key guy in
their operation, and if they needed quick because somebody needed
a fast getaway into the interior Brazil, he would fly
them into the seaplane. And apparently there were a series
of lakes that he knew where to land on. He
said Zookers was still operating, because Zookers was a lesser
war criminal, although much of a war criminal. Anderson made
(20:50):
a mental note of the unusual name and reced back
to his hotel to come through the research feast and
Thal had given him. So I looked through these files,
and happily I had a file on him. So I
went over his file and decided he was a pretty
bad son of the bits. The file I remember described
how he on one occasion had locked Jews in a
(21:12):
synagogue and then set it on fire and just burned
him alive in a synagogue. They told about Jews leaving
in these big fat blue busses for the forest, and
then they busses came back empty. So the assumption was
that he was slaughtering him. And he was described in
some of the Affi Davits. I saw three or four
(21:34):
descriptions of him, and they were all this consistent. They
described it as a big, stocky fellow who always wore
out a leather jack and always carried his pistol in
his back pocket. It was just curious place to carry
a pistol. And anyhow, he was brutal. They said that
he was. One of his favorite pastimes was bursting in
a Jews who had beautiful daughters twelve and one in
(21:57):
the morning, and and HollyHood daughters off for his own
pleasure and that kind of stuff. He was really and ugly, vicious,
main son of a bitch. And so I said to Morrow,
can you get through to him? Yes, he said he could.
I said, would you arrange for me to go see him?
Tell him that I I just want to talk to
(22:18):
him about his story, the harassment that he's under in
that sort of made it sound as friendly as I could.
Got the word back that he had agreed to see
me later. I'll tell you about what Anderson encountered when
he went to meet with Sukers. But meanwhile, Israel was
(22:40):
focused on South America too, and the Nazi fugitives hiding
out there. The Israeli government kept a list of important
Nazi criminals who had escaped justice. We don't know how
many people were on it, but we do know a
few of the more famous names. At A Bikman, one
of the main architects of the Holocaust. The Massad captured
(23:01):
him in nineteen sixty. He was put on trial and
then executed two years later. Doctor Joseph Mengela, known as
the Angel of Death, who had murdered Jewish children at
Auschwitz and had conducted ghastly experiments on Jewish prisoners, was
high up on the list, and after the article appeared
in the Brazilian magazine Zuker's had made it too. In
(23:27):
the early nineties sixties, the Israelis became concerned about a
possible amnesty for Nazis. Remember, the German government was seriously
considering giving a free pass to Nazi murderers who hadn't
been indicted yet. The Israelis wanted to stop this from
happening at all costs, and they had decided to go
after a Nazi. A few months later, Armissad agent Mio
(23:50):
was in Paris getting ready to assume the role of
a lifetime He had left the apartment after his meeting
with his boss, convinced that the mission was justified. He
had target. Now he had to prepare to meet him,
to befriend him. It's kind of a seduction. Mio had
played his part to four a missions that made history.
(24:11):
He was in Argentina for the most famous Massad operation
of all, the nineteen six kidnapping of Adolf Aikman, one
of the senior organizers of the Nazi Holocaust. Neo had
flown to South America, rented the cars the team used
during the surveillance and the kidnapping. He'd actually guarded the
Nazi and the apartment that Massad used before bundling Aikman
(24:33):
out of Argentina and back to Israel. He'd studied Aikman closely.
You have no idea what the small, nervous man he was,
how he signed the document agreeing to be tried in Israel,
and how he behaved this man who sent millions to
their death. So Mio had played a supporting role when
(24:56):
it came to Aikman, but now he faced a much
more confident, tough minded man, one who wouldn't go so quietly.
He had to plan the mission himself without explicit directions
from Massade headquarters, and for that you had to get
inside the butcher's head, find out what he wanted discover
his weak points. Who was the kind of an operation
(25:19):
built for someone like Mia. If you want James Bond
or Auto spy movies, you'll find a lot of cliches.
And the spy agent looks very very smart, very tall,
beautiful into real life. Its other agents how very far
(25:40):
away from this. Some of them looks like great people,
little people behind the desk. And the mad Dad was
even more than this. He was a mastermind. That's after Abraham,
the ex massad agent who studied the Zuker's operation. He's
talking about meals genius at playing roles. Like any good actor,
(26:00):
MEO's first thoughts were about looking the part. After leaving
the apartment in Paris, he set out to become a
different person. What Meo needed was a cover identity. He
wasn't going to South America in heavy disguise, not exactly.
He already looked a lot like the man he would
be playing, the Austrian businessman Anton Kunsla. He didn't need
(26:22):
to physically transform himself. But you have to understand that
Meo wasn't just another operative. He truly saw it to
become the person he was portraying. My uncompromising perfectionism. Even
that's the close of my own health is part of
my nature. Then creating a cover story, all of his
(26:44):
paid close attention to all the small details, and they
never looked for short cuts. I had seen too many
filops in my lives. It was a result of half
hearted preparations, due to negligence or laziness. I could not
allows it. MEO's nickname within Massad was a man of
(27:05):
a hundred identities. He'd become these people and then when
the mission was over, leave them behind. But when he
was inside the cover, it had to feel real to him.
Even small changes meant a lot. So three days after
the meeting in Paris, Meal took a train to Rotterdam,
a port city in Holland. He didn't want to set
(27:26):
up his cover in Paris was too close to home
and he might run into someone he knew, So he
chose Rotterdam for its banks and hotels that did business
with people from all over Europe, important people. That's what
he was aiming for. Anton kunz La was going to
be a guy with a lot of money and prestige,
someone solid, dependable, someone people paid attention to and believed in.
(27:52):
There's a combination of my advanced boldness, wound stomach and
calm appearance gave every care I had adopted in past obervations.
The semblance of trustworthiness in the breast pocket of meos
suit was an Austrian passport. It was a fake, of course.
(28:13):
MASSAD had an entire department in Tel Aviv that produced
fake passports, birth certificates and other important documents. It's been
called the passport Factory. They had several ways of getting
high quality documents. They would ask Jews who would spend
time in foreign countries to donate their passports so duplicates
could be made. They've also been accused of stealing blank
(28:36):
passports then filling in the names of their agents cover identities.
Fifty blank passports once disappeared from a safe in the
Canadian embassy in Vienna. MASSAD was suspected. A year later,
one of the Canadian documents was found in Cyprus. It
had been left behind by a MASSAD operative after a
(28:57):
bomb had exploded underneath the bed of a palace Indian
guerilla leader. It's been reported that the agency keeps the
fake passports in a vault in their headquarters, sorted by country.
The documents were extremely high quality. Sad even produced his
own paper and ink. Neil's passport identified him as Anti Kunsla,
(29:19):
a man who didn't exist. The mission had a timetable.
There was a lot to do. Me would only have
ten hours in Rotterdam, so he had to move fast.
When he got to the city, he checked into the
Rin Hotel, a luxury a ddress that would give him
(29:40):
instant credibility as a rich real estate developer, which was
supposed to be Kunzla's business. Neil then walked to the
post office, gave the hotel as his address, and opened
a PO box. That PEO box now became Anti Kunzla's
address in Rotterdam. Neo headed out of the post office
and found branch of the Amro Bank. He told the
(30:02):
bank clerk he wanted to open an account. When the
clerk asked for his address, he gave the PO box
and pulled out three thousand dollars for the initial deposit.
He was careful not to use his native German in
talking with Guy, because the Germans had occupied Rotterdam during
the war and there might still be lingering bitterness. Neo
he considered everything he still needed a visa for Brazil.
(30:27):
He asked the hotel dorman what he'd need. The guy
sent a bell hop to get all the forms. Neo
slipped him what he called a fat tip, and the
deal was done. The dorman even called the local doctor
for a physical, which was one of the requirements for
traveling to Brazil. Now Meo needed a visa photo. He
wanted to slightly change his appearance. If the operation was successful,
(30:51):
it would be a good chance that inner Poul would
look for him. His face would be on wanted posters
from Paris to Buenos Aires. He was our me growing
a mustache, but that wasn't enough. He found an optician
shop nearest hotel and picked out a pair of heavy frames.
The optician gave him an exam, and Meo, we had
(31:11):
perfect eyesight, intentionally misread the bottom line of letters. He's
got the prescription. Later he realized that the lenses would
actually damage his vision. But for Meo, it was the
price you had to pay. I knew Jokers was mistrustful
and fearful of traps, and the possibility existed, or mote
(31:33):
as it might have been, that he would find some
excuse to check my glasses. I might have sacrificed the
quality of my eyesight for the sake of settling the account.
Was a despicable murder, but I don't regret it for
one second. As Mia went to his different appointments, he
picked up pocket matter, bus tickets, laundry receipt as well
(31:57):
as tooth based and other items with the price tag
still on. He could leave this stuff in his luggage
when he went to Brazil. If Sukers became suspicious and
went through his things, he'd see that his new friend
really was who he said he was. He had to
out paranoid suckers to be even more neurotic and fearful
than he was. Because Meo was meeting the butcher alone.
(32:22):
The operation the massage the town and killed soups. Because
usually in the normal operation you have the backup team,
you have your way to a kid. Dathaniel says, you
have a gun or weapons or other kinds of playfriends.
(32:43):
Not this time. Meal was the only real weapon. With
his mind his ability to outwit his target. It made
his cover extremely important. After finishing up in Rotterdam, Meo
headed to Zurich. There he set up a bank account
and arranged for several letters of credit. He bought a
lightweight black suit, the kind of business men who are
(33:06):
in Brazil. He picked up some stationary which he had
engraved with his fake name. He had some business cards
and travelers checks. Then it was back to Paris. He
met again with the mission Commander Joseph your Reeve and
worked out exactly how they would communicate during the operation.
This was and of course there was no email or texting.
(33:29):
Even international phone calls were expensive and hard to make,
so instead they would use fake messages sent by airmail
and in them Meo and Massad would write the real
messages and invisible inc if Suker's got to look at them,
they would appear to be just simple business letters. When
the meeting was over, Neo booked a flight to Brazil
(33:51):
for September eleventh. He was ready to meet the Butcher. Hi,
this is Stephen Talty, host of Good Assassins Hunting the Butcher.
The folks that help me bring you this show, Diversion
(34:13):
Podcasts have just launched another podcast that I think you'll like.
It's called Backstaged The Devil in Metal, a deep dive
into the history of mental music, filled with never before
heard interviews and stories from some of the biggest names
of music, including Black Sabbath, Judas Priest, Ben Helen, and
(34:33):
many others. It's outrageous, raw and surprising at times backstage.
The Devil in Metal is out Now. Follow the show
on Apple Podcasts, I hired Radio app or wherever you
listen to your podcasts. His first stop Rio. The flight
(35:01):
to Brazil was twelve hours long. He was exhausted when
he arrived. He checked into the Hotel California that was
the name Believe it or Not, and went up to
the restaurant. From his seat, he could see Copacabana Beach
laid up beneath him. He took in the view, knowing
it would be the last time for a long time
he would be able to fully relax. It was a
(35:24):
fairly wide strip of golden sands bordering blue waters on
one side, and strewn the myriad colorful dots that were
in fact beautiful sun tanned women clad in skimpy bazing swoops.
The hundreds of kites in various colors and shapes such
(35:47):
as eagles, dragons, and butterflies that sold in the pleasant
sea breeze completed the picture of a free and easy
life without the care in the world. He thought about
how some people could be living such pleasant lives while
he was twenty stories up planning an assassination. When he
(36:09):
finished his dinner, he sent a telegram to Massa, I'd
safely love to everyone. Then that Monday he got to work.
(36:39):
He went to the tourist ministry and told the officials
there he wanted to invest in Brazil. He talked his
way into the minister's office, got his business card. He
was building his local cover. Finally, he flew to South Paulo,
where the butcher was now living. He noted that the
airport was named after Santos Dumont, a famous pilot who
(37:00):
had a medal named in his honor. Dumont Metal was
awarded every year to the world's greatest aviators. Zookers had
won it in the thirties, who was a reminder from
me O of who the butcher had been before the war.
Camp Meo checked into an expensive hotel in Sal Paulo.
For the next few days, he went around the city
(37:21):
working on his identity. He reunted in a Volkswagen Beetle
to get him around. He visited the local branch of
the Swiss Bank, where he'd opened an account, left his
business card and made sure the manager remembered him, just
in case Zukers stopped in. Then he dropped by the
(37:44):
headquarters of a company that specialized in marinas. Zukers had
his little boat business in a marina in the Interlagos neighborhood.
Neo needed an excuse to visit it. He quickly talked
his way into a meeting with a company's director. When
he was in character, Mio had this confidence that he
(38:04):
lacked at other times. In real life. He was often shy, introverted.
In Israel, he was a bit of an outsider. His
German accent marked him out as a foreigner, as opposed
to many of the other Massad agents were Sabras native
born Israelis. But when Mio slipped into a new identity,
he was transformed. He was sociable, chatty, even commanding. He
(38:28):
was more comfortable giving orders. It's as if the missions
gave me a permission to be the person he always
wanted to be. At the end of the meeting, Neo
got the director to write a letter introducing him to
the guy who ran the yacht club in Interlagos. Now
he had a reason to go there. This is the
(38:51):
drudge work of espionage, the kind of thing you rarely
see in movies or spy novels. Establishing cover, making attacks,
scouting the territory. It seemed boring, and then the way
it was James Bond would never have bothered. But in
the real world of espionage, it could save your life.
(39:12):
I was pleased with my achievements. Thanks to the combination
of professional experience and the little luck I had managed
in just four days to not only further establish Macago
story and had concrete details to the character Anton Kunz,
(39:32):
but also to get elegantly closer to the target without
leaving any incriminating traces behind. Every step brought me closer
to Zuker's dock and to the inevitable face to face
encounter with him. Meal was expected to meet an old man.
(39:55):
The butcher was sixty four, after all, past his prime.
You thought this would be a battle of wills where
the biggest danger would be getting found out. If that happened,
the operation would be over and the amnesty for Nazi
criminals the German government was planning would most likely go
into effect. Would be a painful blow to Jews all
over the World. Mio knew the mission was risky, but
(40:19):
he never imagined it would be physically dangerous. It wasn't
like the Butcher was still out to kill Jews, but
Meo was wrong about that, and he also didn't know
that the Butcher had bowed never to be taken alive.
(40:47):
Good Assassins Hunting the Butcher is a production of Diversion
Podcasts in association with I Heart Radio. This season is
written and hosted by Stephen Talti, produced and directed by
Scott Waxman and jacobron Stein. Executive producers Scott Waxman and
Mark Francis. Story editing by Jacob Bronstein, with editorial direction
(41:08):
from Scott Waxman and Mangesh Had Ticket Dour Editing, mixing
and sound designed by Mark Francis with the voices of
Nick Afka, Thomas Armory, Angle, Andrew Polk, Mindy Escobar, Leants,
Steve Rautman and Stefan Rudnitsky. Theme music by Tyler Cash.
Archival research by Adam Shapiro. Special thanks to Oran Rosenbaum
(41:32):
at U T a mber Er. The Diverse
Diversion podcasts. A note this episode contains descriptions of graphic
violence and scenes of genocide. Listener's discretion is advised. Herbert
(00:28):
Zuker's The Butcher of Latvia, had made a terrible mistake.
He'd agreed to be profiled in a major Brazilian magazine, Okrauzero.
The article called from the Baltics to Brazil hit newsstands.
J I wanted to talk to someone who could put
(00:50):
this article in context for me, someone who could explain
Zuker's popularity and has adopted home of Brazil. I am
Dr saraphile To. I am a visiting assistant professor currently
at the Ackerman Center for Holocaust Studies at the University
of Texas at Dallas. Dr Valenti studies the legacy of
World War Two in the Holocaust in Brazil. In other words,
(01:13):
she definitely studies Herbert Sukers. I asked Dr Valenti about
this magazine article. Suckers allowed himself to be interviewed for
She explained how it completely whitewashes Zuker's Nazi passed. The
article talks about the family story, how they were poor
war refugees. It identifies them as war refugees who all
(01:35):
of the sudden four years are not massively successful. It
talks about his beautiful Arian children literally against the backdrop
of the famous sugirl of mountains of Rio de Janato,
and this article really praises him and how quickly it says,
you know, a family from Latvia flees from the horrors
of war lands in Rio on Carnival Sunday, sells a
(01:57):
small camera and rebuilds their future. It was five pages long,
and it showed the beautiful life that the Zuker's family
had carved out for themselves since leaving Latvia and settling
in Rio. The Zookers, they look like actors in the
nineteen fifties speech movie. One of the things that really resonates,
especially when we see the descriptions of the children and
(02:20):
the photographs of the children, especially the photograph of the daughter.
She has this kind of little bikini top on and
she's this beautiful girl with blond hair. The family is quite,
you know, physically, esthetically speaking, beautiful, right. There is something
that is desirable about their look, their ability to raise
(02:40):
themselves up, and they're great contributions to the country. And
the description is very much this idea of you know,
these are the kinds of people we want in this country.
Herbert Sukers came across as a go getter who built
up a nice business from nothing. He is described as
this embodiment of tenacity, this very industrious man who is
(03:03):
bringing new type of technology for water skiing, which is
something that Brazilians had only seen in films at that time,
and here he is creating this kind of new recreational sport.
But the article went further. It said that Zukers should
be an inspiration. Here was a guy who would face
war and exile, gone through extreme poverty, and yet was
(03:25):
succeeding when all seems lost. The story read the human
species can find within itself the same energies and ability
to forget the past and reshape its own destiny. It
was such a great story. Who was going to prove
it wrong? Well? By this time, years after World War Two,
(03:52):
it was a small group of Nazi hunters who were
on Suckers trail. They knew he was a monster, but
they had to prove bit. What if they announced the
world that they'd located the statistic killer, the Butcher of Latvia,
and then found out it was the wrong guy. It
would set the entire cause back, would be a blow
to Jewish activists everywhere, It would be a disaster. They
(04:16):
had to be right. I'm Stephen Talty and this is
good assassin's hunting the butcher. So the first was so
(04:38):
fine and not end moving forwards, rival the second promine
and large killing. We must thwart this shameful pass, the
end of a trail of blood and horror, the end
of a man whose name will be written in information
every step but to be closer to Joker stock And
(04:58):
it was the inevitive, be face to face and counts.
Episode three, The Man of one Hundred Identities. I don't
know if you're a fan of the nine movie Marathon Man,
(05:19):
but it's one of my favorites. It's about an escape
Nazi played by the famous British actor Lawrence Olivier, who
comes to New York years after the war to retrieve
some diamonds. Of course, he's terrified being discovered and arrested
or even killed, so he goes to great lengths to
ensure that he won't be identified. There's a famous scene
(05:41):
where Olivier's character tortures the young Dustin Hoffman, who plays
the brother of a ci age. The Nazi asked him
over and over, is it safe? Is it safe? It's
one of the great thriller scenes. If you haven't watched it,
you owe it to yourself to check it out. But
(06:02):
Marathon Man also makes an interesting point that relates to
our story. Why is this escaped Nazi character so afraid
of exposing himself? In part, it's because he's in New
York City and he has to go to the neighborhood
known as the Diamond District. The Diamond District is where
thousands of Jewish merchants work even today. In the seventies,
(06:24):
which is when the movie set, it would have been
hundreds of Holocaust survivors there. That's why Olivier's character is
afraid because in a time before the Internet or Google
or social media, the best way of identifying an escape
Nazi was through an eye witness, someone who knew him,
someone who could recognize him. For Nazi on the run,
(06:45):
New York was one of the most dangerous cities in
the world because people there would remember his face and
those people do all the terrible things he'd done. So
in the vie, the Nazi gets the Diamonds and he's
walking down the street. He's feeling good. Then an older
(07:05):
woman spots him. She can't believe what she's seeing, this
monster actually right in front of her. It's like a
memory from a different world. She starts screaming his name.
She follows him, shouting and calling for help, and he
almost gets caught. But this is the difference between the
Diamond District in New York City and Rio, where Zukers
(07:27):
was living at the time. There was a significant Jewish
community in Rio, some of whom Zukers had already met,
but very few Holocaust survivors and almost none from Latvia.
From seven to nineteen fifty, Brazil had a secret policy
that denied visas to Jews fleeing Hitler. It turned away
sixteen thousand requests Jewish refugees who wanted to immigrate there.
(07:52):
The reason simple anti Semitism. This secret policy cut down
on the numbers who eventually were able to make it
to Brazil. That's why the magazine article was such a mistake,
because Okra zero was distributed far and wide, not only
in Brazil but across South America, and the right people
(08:12):
saw it. Or from Zuker's point of view, the wrong people.
But before Zukers could be placed on a list, and
before Massad and Mio could begin to track him down,
zukers pursuers had to be sure he was the right guy.
Was this really the Butcher of Latvia? Maybe there was
(08:32):
another Herbert Sukers. We had nothing to do with the Nazis.
Maybe he was innocent. That was problem number one. Problem
number two had to do with other people. By the
early fifties, the world was starting to lose interests in
Nazi war criminals. The few survivors and activists who saw
the magazine article and thought this might be the Butcher
(08:53):
contacted the authorities. They wrote the British Foreign Office, who
had prosecuted war criminals from Latvia. The British basically blew
them off. The Cold War was underway, the Brits needed
the Germans as allies. They were tired of the whole
issue of the Holocaust. They wanted to move on. There
(09:13):
were a small group of Jewish activists who didn't want
to move on. They couldn't forget what they'd seen during
the war. They dedicated their lives to finding people like
the Butcher. These men and women were scattered around the
globe New York, Vienna, Tel Aviv. A few of them
were famous. Simon Wiesenthal, the legendary Nazi hunter, was the
(09:35):
most famous. That many were anonymous. Beginning in the mid
nineteen forties, they spent their time writing letters to survivors,
poring over archives, searching for clues. One committee of these
Nazi hunters tried to get the Russians interested in the butcher.
After all, Russia had taken over lab Via after the war,
(09:55):
surely they would do something. But the Russians said that
the nation of Latvia no longer existed, so they couldn't
prosecute anyone who committed crimes there. They washed their hands
of the whole deal. So even if the Nazi hunters
proved this guy in Brazil was the butcher, so what
who was going to do something about it? The hunters
(10:16):
decided to cross that bridge when they got to it.
First they had to I D. Suckers confirmed he was
the butcher. Then they would find someone to do something
about it. But again, no Google, no camera phones, how
do you confirm this is the guy? So this is
how they did it. Step one, they had to get
(10:38):
photos of Herbert Suckers before the war. That was the
starting point. But how a young man named Joseph Schneider
went to the central Library in Riga, the capital of Latvia.
We don't know a lot about Schneider. He may have
been part of a Nazi hunter network, or he may
have been asked to do a favor for a friend.
(10:59):
In any case, he went to the aviation section and
started going through the newspaper archives. This was Herbert Suckers
Achilles Heel. Most Nazis had been anonymous before the war,
but Suckers had been a publicity hound. He loved the attention,
so the young researcher started coming across articles on this
brilliant young aviator. And along with the articles were photos.
(11:24):
Here's Herbert Suckers in a leather coat. Is one of
him in profile, smiling and smiling in a plane outside
the plane. There were tons of pictures. Great, but one problem.
There were no xerox machines, not only in the regal
library but anywhere. They weren't on the market yet, and
the photos had to be copied so they could be
(11:44):
compared to ones with the guy in rio. Schneider knew this.
He came prepared. In his hand, he held a small
razor blade, and when the librarian wasn't looking, he bent
down and started cutting first one article, then the next.
He chose the ones with the clearest photos, and when
(12:05):
he was done, he brought the bomb newspapers back to
the desk. Then he walked out. In his pocket was
the crucial evidence. Okay, step one was a success. They
had a baseline photos of the man they knew to
be Herbert Suckers. Now they needed pictures of the guy
in Rio. If the two matched, they had their man.
(12:26):
This part was a little harder. The Nazi hunters wrote
their contexts. In Brazil, a young man named Victor that's
all we know about him his first name, agreed to
try to get a current photo of Zukers. He went
to the dock where the man from the magazine article
was working. He asked the guy, who was wearing an
(12:46):
old captain's hat, if you could take him and his
friend on a boat tour of the lake. The man agreed,
so Victor and his friend and this man who was
maybe Herbert Suckers got into the boat. Victory had brought
along a camera, naturally, and he started taking shots of
the scenery, water, skiers, sailors, he clicked whenever he saw
something interesting, and then he turned and tried to get
(13:08):
a shot of the mystery man and the captain sat
but no, the guy was jumpy. Whenever Victor pointed the
camera in his direction, he would duck down, or turn
his head or look away. Victor could not believe it.
He was taking all these photos and he hadn't gotten
a single decent shot of the guy. He always tried
to hide his face, he later said. Finally, Victor took
(13:30):
a few last shots as the boat returned to the dock.
Once he had left the marina, Victor brought the roles
of film to be developed, and he waited. When the
photos were ready, he picked them up and they were
pretty much as he thought, disappointing, but he sent them
off to the Nazi hunters anyway. He said if they
weren't good enough, he'd go back to the dock, this
(13:51):
time with a movie camera. The Nazi hunters got the photos,
he sorted through them and found one they thought might work.
It showed and Supers in profile as he was ducking
down to avoid the camera. Not ideal, but worth a shot.
The team took Victor's photo and put it next to
one from the Regal Library, and they compared. Within a
(14:12):
few minutes they had an answer. The man in the
Captain's hat and the Latvian Lindburg were the same man.
They found the Butcher of Latvia. M h. If you're
this far into the story, we're assuming you're enjoying Hunting
(14:34):
the Butcher. If you're listening on Apple podcasts, would you
be able to take a minute to give the show
a rating and a review. Just find the show's page
on Apple Podcasts, scrolled down to the section called Ratings
and Reviews and tap one of those purple stars to
give it a rating. Then tapped a little purple link
that says write a review and leave a few words
(14:55):
about what you think of Hunting the Butcher. It really
helps get the word out and let other listeners know
about the podcast. Much appreciated. Now on with the show,
an organization called the World Jewish Congress announced that the
Butcher of Latvia had been found was living in Brazil,
and despite the growing indifference towards the hunt for Nazis,
(15:17):
it had an effect. There were headlines in Brazilian newspapers.
Sucre's business was ruined. He had to move several times
to avoid angry protesters. Eventually he ended up in the
city of sal Paolo, running another small boat rental business.
This was not what Sucers had imagined for himself. His
dreams of building a glorious new life in Brazil. They've
(15:39):
been shattered. The Jews had seen to that. He was bitter, paranoid,
and lonely, but he was still free. The efforts of
the Nazi hunters had failed. They tried to get governments
around the world to pay attention. They'd lobbied Brazil to
deport him. They'd asked America and Great Britain get involved.
(16:01):
Nothing had worked. So in the mid sixties, Zukers was
holding his own He still hoped for a grand third
act of his life. He believed in himself. He just
had to convince the world that he'd been misunderstood in
order to get all the fame and the money back.
That was the dream. We found some incredible tapes from
(16:26):
a man named Jack Anderson. Anderson was a legendary and
controversial investigative reporter who died in two thousand five. Anderson's
papers resided at George Washington University, and his personal archive
of recordings have just recently been on sealed. This will
be the first time anyone has heard these tapes, and
(16:47):
they're striking. I'm an American newspaper man that just want
to be interested in talking to some of these Nazis
and hearing their side of the story. Anderson traveled to
Brazil in nineteen sixty to track down Nazi fugitives for
an article he eventually published in Parade magazine, and that
(17:08):
was his cover. Occurred to me that if they found Aikman,
there are probably other war criminals down there in hiding.
In fact, I knew there were other war criminals, and
I thought it might even be possible to find a few.
And I thought it would be a great story for Parade.
So told Parade I was gonna go down and look
for him. It sounds unbelievable to just hop on a
(17:29):
plane and go interview Nazis, but Anderson was good at
his job, and he met a crucial contact at the
airport immediately upon his arrival. I felt that there was
a stroke of luck, and if I do say so myself,
good reporting that I got him in a hurry. I
just sold him on the idea that I was a
friendly newspaper man who would like to talk to some
(17:49):
of them. He got talking, he explained how they operated. Mario,
as I remember, was his name. His first name you're
taking wasn't his real name. He had taken on a
Brazilian name, had been a major in the s s
and Uh was living a different life now as a
(18:13):
airline employee. This lower level management guy, Anderson wanted a
big exclusive and he came prepared. Before his trip. He
contacted Simon Wiesenthal, and Visenthal sent him reams of research
on all the Nazi fugitives he thought might be living there.
But Anderson was focused, and he made a list of
(18:34):
the most infamous Nazis still at large. He wanted to
find the next Aikman, and this man he was sitting with,
Mario seemed to know them all. Told me about Mangle.
He knew all about Mangley, but he said after the
kidnapping him Mangley was in Buenos Aires in Argentina, and
new right where he was said that he had fled
(18:57):
though after the Aikemen kidnapping. That was after the big ones,
and and he wasn't very helpful on any of the
big ones. They were either inaccessible or they had disappeared
after the Aikman had scared them all into hiding. He
said that they had a ring of a rather loose
association of kind of co conspirators, people who were in
(19:22):
the same boat and therefore helped one another. And then
he told me about He said they had hideout deep
in Brazil where they would go when they felt threatened
when they were on the run. Anderson was hitting a
wall after the very high profile kidnapping and trial of Aikman.
Ex Nazis were more paranoid than ever. After all, they
(19:44):
weren't hiding. It made sense that they wouldn't want to
talk to a quote unquote American newspaperman, no matter how
friendly he claimed to be. But there was this one
Nazi Mario brought up who sounded different from the rest.
This Nazi wasn't on Anderson's radar and his name didn't
(20:04):
even ring a bell. That led him to tell me
about Suckers, who had three seaplanes on the lake outside
of South Apollo. He said he ran his sightseeing business there,
but he said he's very useful to us because he
can fly our people into the interior. So Suckers was
(20:25):
a guy who flew who was a key guy in
their operation, and if they needed quick because somebody needed
a fast getaway into the interior Brazil, he would fly
them into the seaplane. And apparently there were a series
of lakes that he knew where to land on. He
said Zookers was still operating, because Zookers was a lesser
war criminal, although much of a war criminal. Anderson made
(20:50):
a mental note of the unusual name and reced back
to his hotel to come through the research feast and
Thal had given him. So I looked through these files,
and happily I had a file on him. So I
went over his file and decided he was a pretty
bad son of the bits. The file I remember described
how he on one occasion had locked Jews in a
(21:12):
synagogue and then set it on fire and just burned
him alive in a synagogue. They told about Jews leaving
in these big fat blue busses for the forest, and
then they busses came back empty. So the assumption was
that he was slaughtering him. And he was described in
some of the Affi Davits. I saw three or four
(21:34):
descriptions of him, and they were all this consistent. They
described it as a big, stocky fellow who always wore
out a leather jack and always carried his pistol in
his back pocket. It was just curious place to carry
a pistol. And anyhow, he was brutal. They said that
he was. One of his favorite pastimes was bursting in
a Jews who had beautiful daughters twelve and one in
(21:57):
the morning, and and HollyHood daughters off for his own
pleasure and that kind of stuff. He was really and ugly, vicious,
main son of a bitch. And so I said to Morrow,
can you get through to him? Yes, he said he could.
I said, would you arrange for me to go see him?
Tell him that I I just want to talk to
(22:18):
him about his story, the harassment that he's under in
that sort of made it sound as friendly as I could.
Got the word back that he had agreed to see
me later. I'll tell you about what Anderson encountered when
he went to meet with Sukers. But meanwhile, Israel was
(22:40):
focused on South America too, and the Nazi fugitives hiding
out there. The Israeli government kept a list of important
Nazi criminals who had escaped justice. We don't know how
many people were on it, but we do know a
few of the more famous names. At A Bikman, one
of the main architects of the Holocaust. The Massad captured
(23:01):
him in nineteen sixty. He was put on trial and
then executed two years later. Doctor Joseph Mengela, known as
the Angel of Death, who had murdered Jewish children at
Auschwitz and had conducted ghastly experiments on Jewish prisoners, was
high up on the list, and after the article appeared
in the Brazilian magazine Zuker's had made it too. In
(23:27):
the early nineties sixties, the Israelis became concerned about a
possible amnesty for Nazis. Remember, the German government was seriously
considering giving a free pass to Nazi murderers who hadn't
been indicted yet. The Israelis wanted to stop this from
happening at all costs, and they had decided to go
after a Nazi. A few months later, Armissad agent Mio
(23:50):
was in Paris getting ready to assume the role of
a lifetime He had left the apartment after his meeting
with his boss, convinced that the mission was justified. He
had target. Now he had to prepare to meet him,
to befriend him. It's kind of a seduction. Mio had
played his part to four a missions that made history.
(24:11):
He was in Argentina for the most famous Massad operation
of all, the nineteen six kidnapping of Adolf Aikman, one
of the senior organizers of the Nazi Holocaust. Neo had
flown to South America, rented the cars the team used
during the surveillance and the kidnapping. He'd actually guarded the
Nazi and the apartment that Massad used before bundling Aikman
(24:33):
out of Argentina and back to Israel. He'd studied Aikman closely.
You have no idea what the small, nervous man he was,
how he signed the document agreeing to be tried in Israel,
and how he behaved this man who sent millions to
their death. So Mio had played a supporting role when
(24:56):
it came to Aikman, but now he faced a much
more confident, tough minded man, one who wouldn't go so quietly.
He had to plan the mission himself without explicit directions
from Massade headquarters, and for that you had to get
inside the butcher's head, find out what he wanted discover
his weak points. Who was the kind of an operation
(25:19):
built for someone like Mia. If you want James Bond
or Auto spy movies, you'll find a lot of cliches.
And the spy agent looks very very smart, very tall,
beautiful into real life. Its other agents how very far
(25:40):
away from this. Some of them looks like great people,
little people behind the desk. And the mad Dad was
even more than this. He was a mastermind. That's after Abraham,
the ex massad agent who studied the Zuker's operation. He's
talking about meals genius at playing roles. Like any good actor,
(26:00):
MEO's first thoughts were about looking the part. After leaving
the apartment in Paris, he set out to become a
different person. What Meo needed was a cover identity. He
wasn't going to South America in heavy disguise, not exactly.
He already looked a lot like the man he would
be playing, the Austrian businessman Anton Kunsla. He didn't need
(26:22):
to physically transform himself. But you have to understand that
Meo wasn't just another operative. He truly saw it to
become the person he was portraying. My uncompromising perfectionism. Even
that's the close of my own health is part of
my nature. Then creating a cover story, all of his
(26:44):
paid close attention to all the small details, and they
never looked for short cuts. I had seen too many
filops in my lives. It was a result of half
hearted preparations, due to negligence or laziness. I could not
allows it. MEO's nickname within Massad was a man of
(27:05):
a hundred identities. He'd become these people and then when
the mission was over, leave them behind. But when he
was inside the cover, it had to feel real to him.
Even small changes meant a lot. So three days after
the meeting in Paris, Meal took a train to Rotterdam,
a port city in Holland. He didn't want to set
(27:26):
up his cover in Paris was too close to home
and he might run into someone he knew, So he
chose Rotterdam for its banks and hotels that did business
with people from all over Europe, important people. That's what
he was aiming for. Anton kunz La was going to
be a guy with a lot of money and prestige,
someone solid, dependable, someone people paid attention to and believed in.
(27:52):
There's a combination of my advanced boldness, wound stomach and
calm appearance gave every care I had adopted in past obervations.
The semblance of trustworthiness in the breast pocket of meos
suit was an Austrian passport. It was a fake, of course.
(28:13):
MASSAD had an entire department in Tel Aviv that produced
fake passports, birth certificates and other important documents. It's been
called the passport Factory. They had several ways of getting
high quality documents. They would ask Jews who would spend
time in foreign countries to donate their passports so duplicates
could be made. They've also been accused of stealing blank
(28:36):
passports then filling in the names of their agents cover identities.
Fifty blank passports once disappeared from a safe in the
Canadian embassy in Vienna. MASSAD was suspected. A year later,
one of the Canadian documents was found in Cyprus. It
had been left behind by a MASSAD operative after a
(28:57):
bomb had exploded underneath the bed of a palace Indian
guerilla leader. It's been reported that the agency keeps the
fake passports in a vault in their headquarters, sorted by country.
The documents were extremely high quality. Sad even produced his
own paper and ink. Neil's passport identified him as Anti Kunsla,
(29:19):
a man who didn't exist. The mission had a timetable.
There was a lot to do. Me would only have
ten hours in Rotterdam, so he had to move fast.
When he got to the city, he checked into the
Rin Hotel, a luxury a ddress that would give him
(29:40):
instant credibility as a rich real estate developer, which was
supposed to be Kunzla's business. Neil then walked to the
post office, gave the hotel as his address, and opened
a PO box. That PEO box now became Anti Kunzla's
address in Rotterdam. Neo headed out of the post office
and found branch of the Amro Bank. He told the
(30:02):
bank clerk he wanted to open an account. When the
clerk asked for his address, he gave the PO box
and pulled out three thousand dollars for the initial deposit.
He was careful not to use his native German in
talking with Guy, because the Germans had occupied Rotterdam during
the war and there might still be lingering bitterness. Neo
he considered everything he still needed a visa for Brazil.
(30:27):
He asked the hotel dorman what he'd need. The guy
sent a bell hop to get all the forms. Neo
slipped him what he called a fat tip, and the
deal was done. The dorman even called the local doctor
for a physical, which was one of the requirements for
traveling to Brazil. Now Meo needed a visa photo. He
wanted to slightly change his appearance. If the operation was successful,
(30:51):
it would be a good chance that inner Poul would
look for him. His face would be on wanted posters
from Paris to Buenos Aires. He was our me growing
a mustache, but that wasn't enough. He found an optician
shop nearest hotel and picked out a pair of heavy frames.
The optician gave him an exam, and Meo, we had
(31:11):
perfect eyesight, intentionally misread the bottom line of letters. He's
got the prescription. Later he realized that the lenses would
actually damage his vision. But for Meo, it was the
price you had to pay. I knew Jokers was mistrustful
and fearful of traps, and the possibility existed, or mote
(31:33):
as it might have been, that he would find some
excuse to check my glasses. I might have sacrificed the
quality of my eyesight for the sake of settling the account.
Was a despicable murder, but I don't regret it for
one second. As Mia went to his different appointments, he
picked up pocket matter, bus tickets, laundry receipt as well
(31:57):
as tooth based and other items with the price tag
still on. He could leave this stuff in his luggage
when he went to Brazil. If Sukers became suspicious and
went through his things, he'd see that his new friend
really was who he said he was. He had to
out paranoid suckers to be even more neurotic and fearful
than he was. Because Meo was meeting the butcher alone.
(32:22):
The operation the massage the town and killed soups. Because
usually in the normal operation you have the backup team,
you have your way to a kid. Dathaniel says, you
have a gun or weapons or other kinds of playfriends.
(32:43):
Not this time. Meal was the only real weapon. With
his mind his ability to outwit his target. It made
his cover extremely important. After finishing up in Rotterdam, Meo
headed to Zurich. There he set up a bank account
and arranged for several letters of credit. He bought a
lightweight black suit, the kind of business men who are
(33:06):
in Brazil. He picked up some stationary which he had
engraved with his fake name. He had some business cards
and travelers checks. Then it was back to Paris. He
met again with the mission Commander Joseph your Reeve and
worked out exactly how they would communicate during the operation.
This was and of course there was no email or texting.
(33:29):
Even international phone calls were expensive and hard to make,
so instead they would use fake messages sent by airmail
and in them Meo and Massad would write the real
messages and invisible inc if Suker's got to look at them,
they would appear to be just simple business letters. When
the meeting was over, Neo booked a flight to Brazil
(33:51):
for September eleventh. He was ready to meet the Butcher. Hi,
this is Stephen Talty, host of Good Assassins Hunting the Butcher.
The folks that help me bring you this show, Diversion
(34:13):
Podcasts have just launched another podcast that I think you'll like.
It's called Backstaged The Devil in Metal, a deep dive
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(34:33):
many others. It's outrageous, raw and surprising at times backstage.
The Devil in Metal is out Now. Follow the show
on Apple Podcasts, I hired Radio app or wherever you
listen to your podcasts. His first stop Rio. The flight
(35:01):
to Brazil was twelve hours long. He was exhausted when
he arrived. He checked into the Hotel California that was
the name Believe it or Not, and went up to
the restaurant. From his seat, he could see Copacabana Beach
laid up beneath him. He took in the view, knowing
it would be the last time for a long time
he would be able to fully relax. It was a
(35:24):
fairly wide strip of golden sands bordering blue waters on
one side, and strewn the myriad colorful dots that were
in fact beautiful sun tanned women clad in skimpy bazing swoops.
The hundreds of kites in various colors and shapes such
(35:47):
as eagles, dragons, and butterflies that sold in the pleasant
sea breeze completed the picture of a free and easy
life without the care in the world. He thought about
how some people could be living such pleasant lives while
he was twenty stories up planning an assassination. When he
(36:09):
finished his dinner, he sent a telegram to Massa, I'd
safely love to everyone. Then that Monday he got to work.
(36:39):
He went to the tourist ministry and told the officials
there he wanted to invest in Brazil. He talked his
way into the minister's office, got his business card. He
was building his local cover. Finally, he flew to South Paulo,
where the butcher was now living. He noted that the
airport was named after Santos Dumont, a famous pilot who
(37:00):
had a medal named in his honor. Dumont Metal was
awarded every year to the world's greatest aviators. Zookers had
won it in the thirties, who was a reminder from
me O of who the butcher had been before the war.
Camp Meo checked into an expensive hotel in Sal Paulo.
For the next few days, he went around the city
(37:21):
working on his identity. He reunted in a Volkswagen Beetle
to get him around. He visited the local branch of
the Swiss Bank, where he'd opened an account, left his
business card and made sure the manager remembered him, just
in case Zukers stopped in. Then he dropped by the
(37:44):
headquarters of a company that specialized in marinas. Zukers had
his little boat business in a marina in the Interlagos neighborhood.
Neo needed an excuse to visit it. He quickly talked
his way into a meeting with a company's director. When
he was in character, Mio had this confidence that he
(38:04):
lacked at other times. In real life. He was often shy, introverted.
In Israel, he was a bit of an outsider. His
German accent marked him out as a foreigner, as opposed
to many of the other Massad agents were Sabras native
born Israelis. But when Mio slipped into a new identity,
he was transformed. He was sociable, chatty, even commanding. He
(38:28):
was more comfortable giving orders. It's as if the missions
gave me a permission to be the person he always
wanted to be. At the end of the meeting, Neo
got the director to write a letter introducing him to
the guy who ran the yacht club in Interlagos. Now
he had a reason to go there. This is the
(38:51):
drudge work of espionage, the kind of thing you rarely
see in movies or spy novels. Establishing cover, making attacks,
scouting the territory. It seemed boring, and then the way
it was James Bond would never have bothered. But in
the real world of espionage, it could save your life.
(39:12):
I was pleased with my achievements. Thanks to the combination
of professional experience and the little luck I had managed
in just four days to not only further establish Macago
story and had concrete details to the character Anton Kunz,
(39:32):
but also to get elegantly closer to the target without
leaving any incriminating traces behind. Every step brought me closer
to Zuker's dock and to the inevitable face to face
encounter with him. Meal was expected to meet an old man.
(39:55):
The butcher was sixty four, after all, past his prime.
You thought this would be a battle of wills where
the biggest danger would be getting found out. If that happened,
the operation would be over and the amnesty for Nazi
criminals the German government was planning would most likely go
into effect. Would be a painful blow to Jews all
over the World. Mio knew the mission was risky, but
(40:19):
he never imagined it would be physically dangerous. It wasn't
like the Butcher was still out to kill Jews, but
Meo was wrong about that, and he also didn't know
that the Butcher had bowed never to be taken alive.
(40:47):
Good Assassins Hunting the Butcher is a production of Diversion
Podcasts in association with I Heart Radio. This season is
written and hosted by Stephen Talti, produced and directed by
Scott Waxman and jacobron Stein. Executive producers Scott Waxman and
Mark Francis. Story editing by Jacob Bronstein, with editorial direction
(41:08):
from Scott Waxman and Mangesh Had Ticket Dour Editing, mixing
and sound designed by Mark Francis with the voices of
Nick Afka, Thomas Armory, Angle, Andrew Polk, Mindy Escobar, Leants,
Steve Rautman and Stefan Rudnitsky. Theme music by Tyler Cash.
Archival research by Adam Shapiro. Special thanks to Oran Rosenbaum
(41:32):
at U T a mber Er. The Diverse
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