The Cat and Mouse Game For The Gestapo Chief | Nazi Hunters | Timeline

my name is dan snow and i want to tell you about history hit tv it's like the netflix for history hundreds of exclusive documentaries and interviews with the world's best historians we've got an exclusive offer available to fans of timeline if you go to history hit tv you can either follow the information below this video or just google history hit tv and use the code timeline you get a special introductory offer go and check it out in the meantime enjoy this video kurt liske was in charge of annihilating a people it was a death factory basically you know it was a death factory there was no will to bring the nazi criminals to justice the klarsvelds believe in action we had to do something there were plots in germany to kill us nothing nothing nothing would stop them [Music] cologne west germany political activists serge and vieta clarksville stake out an apartment building in a quiet neighborhood it is home to nazi war criminal kurt lishka it is 100 liska's job to organize the arrests deportation and their ferrying of the jews east which of course is that great nazi euphemism for exterminating people in camps such as outfits a legal loophole protects nazis like liska from prosecution in germany the klarsfelds are on a mission to change the law and make lishker pay for his crimes we had learned that most of the nazi criminals who had been active in the deportation of the jews of france had remained in germany under their own names we were very outraged by the fact that they became judges businessmen higher officials they wanted to force the germans to see that they had in their midst a major nazi criminal the husband and wife team have traveled from their home in paris to track down the war criminal vaata called information in cologne and had no problem immediately getting an address for kurt liske kurdish existence his number and you know it was as easy as this for serge this isn't just about politics a french jew he lost family in the holocaust we saw him leaving to go to work as an accountant [Music] he was a businessman but 30 years ago liska had a very different job as gestapo chief in paris he orchestrated the murder of 33 000 jews he sent out to paris where he heads up the the jewish affairs department and that doesn't mean looking after jews that means effectively killing them he organized the arrest of jews in france and their deportation to our sheets and that's his job he's in charge of annihilating a people after the war he fall in the ends of the czech authorities they released him in 1950 he went back to live in germany and he lived quietly with his family and tried to get on with a normal life he was a prosperous german businessman it's extraordinary to think that someone could have gone from exterminating people to living this sort of upper middle class life but that was the way it was in recent years liska has prospered he is now a finance executive for a grain shipping company in cologne he was sending grains exactly like jews he was sending grains it's the same work as sending jews the next morning the klarsfelds are back on liska street this time they've hired a cameraman to try to capture the nazi on film club class maclaresvelts found out where he would walk on his way to the streetcar he had to take the streetcar to get to work in cologne lisker is not scuttling under rocks lisker is living very openly once [Music] and suddenly we saw a tall man he was wearing a black coat carrying a briefcase and was smoking a cigarette serge said yes that's him on it is the start of a dramatic cat and mouse chase that will last almost nine years [Music] we filmed ichika when he went out from his apartment i started shooting him from one angle to keep him in the frame as long as possible [Music] so i started running too i kept one eye on the street my right eye was on the viewfinder trying to focus on him when i'm so bad he gets healed on we didn't want to do something against him but he believes that perhaps we will at evita he hid his face behind his briefcase and you can see on the tape that he glanced at me [Music] well they certainly became his worst nightmare when in the famous footage you see the great head of the gestapo of paris running like a squirrel being chased by a dog [Music] it was clear to me that this man was a criminal you could tell by the way he acted fast for good side he was fearful of the truth that they brought it was the truth that was pursuing him not the clars felts it was the truth of his crimes we shot until he got onto the streetcar and so we had a very good material of nazi criminals running in the street in cologne the klarsfelds hope their film of liska will help sway german public opinion hunting down nazi war criminals has become their life's work he was this very intelligent intense young lawyer and she was an au pair but she had a very good brain surge sort of opened up biata's eyes to what happened during the war veyata came to see that as a german it was her destiny with serge to force germany to look at its past and their life since then has just been one long very very hardly fought campaign against injustice in germany especially the couple face enormous obstacles during this time the german state networks and uh legal apparatuses are still riddled with people who are not that interested in hunting nazis either because they themselves have something about their own past to hide or they know someone in fact kurt lishke has already been convicted of war crimes not in germany but in france in 1950 remarkably as long as he stays in germany he's safe like liske were allowed to remain free because there was no framework agreed between the french and germans and how to get some of these criminals into france to be tried the klarsfelds want to shame germany into adopting a new law one that will punish war criminals like liska they released their film to the media which were shown in many tv all over germany and western world but the public outrage they're hoping for never comes nothing happened there was silence and i said you know you have to react [Music] frustrated with government inertia the klarsfelds decide on a more radical move the class belts in their typical fashion decide that there's only one thing to do with lisker and that's not to write letters to members of parliament or lawyers is to take direct action these are children of the 60s after all and they liked a stage are happening we decided that we will try to kidnap him in order to bring him back to france they're going to take him back to france and then present him to the french authorities and go right there do something about it the idea that they would try to kidnap an ex-gestapo chief it was mind-blowing it really was [Music] but to carry out their audacious plan they need help eli is a photographer whose mother died in auschwitz marco is a friend from university and david is a doctor whose judo skills may prove useful [Music] and we told them are you ready to come with us and we explain the case and they say yes none of them were prepared emotionally or physically and i think it was only sergi's very strong persuasive personality that got them on board in the first place biata briefs the recruits on lishka's daily routine she has spent days in cologne spying on him he left in the morning to go to his business and then coming back at noon for a lunch at home and going back to his office but we understood that it will not be easy we knew if we will succeed we will bring him in front of the ministry of police in paris if we do not succeed it will be a case which will mobilize public opinion in germany the team travels to cologne they rehearse the abduction and finalize last-minute details but the plan hits a snag when the rental car they've booked isn't available they want to rent a car they've been promised they'll get a certain type which has four doors and when they arrive the car has only got two doors a two-door car is the worst type of car you can imagine trying to bundle someone into especially someone very tall like liska you can't just shove them in it's the first sign of trouble the day of the kidnap the team moves into position i was you know a volunteer in the israeli army in 67 so i was not afraid by the action the idea was once they had stuffed liska into the trunk they would drive out to the outskirts of cologne and transfer him to another rented car so that they couldn't be spotted or identified along the way back to france [Music] they understood that it was now the moment to get to go after him you know so [Music] [Music] they had the plan what they didn't have were the personnel who could really carry it out somebody really to thwonk let's go hard on the head they're not exactly professional kidnappers at the critical moment eli loses his nerve and freezes [Music] [Music] i don't think they wanted to go back to france saying uh we just we didn't have the courage to carry out our plan so having failed once maybe that bolstered their courage in a nearby cafe saras rallies his troops he reminds them why they're here kurt lishka and hundreds of nazis like him must face justice the situation was a same situation for all the nazi criminals who acted in france and we wanted to change that situation for stares in the back of his mind were the the screams and the moans of children who first were subjected to terrible arrest [Music] [Applause] [Music] then to an inhuman trip to auschwitz [Music] and finally to the gas chamber [Laughter] and lishka more than anyone else was central to that happening in france [Music] [Laughter] in may 1942 lishka decreed that all jews over the age of six were the yellow star of david two months later he ordered the largest mass arrest in french history thousands of jews were arrested during the great roundup of the velodrome diver on july 16 1942 thirteen thousand jews among them four thousand children more than half of the victims rounded up that day died at outfits if it wouldn't be for the fact that we were not arrested on that day i would never seen my 13th birthday simon jerukum was only saved through the quick action of his father and mother she took it upon herself to walk to a cleaning woman who lived in a neighborhood not very far and she begged her to have if we could just stay overnight in her house i remember that moment because i was looking at my mother and i still feel to this day i remember i felt embarrassed that my mother was crying in front of a stranger and all we were told you're going to be placed with farmers they will not know your jewish you'll have to pretend you're catholic i love the house and that's the last time i saw them that was the very last time i feel that part of myself was in a way arrested and i share the fate of all those who were arrested and disappeared serge is determined to make the nazi murderer pay a price [Music] at 12 45 pm he leads a second kidnap attempt [Music] so they go up to liska and in the street this very tall guy we came close to him one took one hand one arm another one took a second arm and he's shocked i mean as you would be if just some random bloke came and jumped out at you and he was very heavy and it was very difficult to push him and he started to to shout her heel for hilfer help help [Music] [Music] hits him again and liska sort of collapses to the ground not unconscious at all but just you know a little bit dazed and stunned he beating him he went down on the ground we were shouting they then tried to manhandle this into the car and at this point things go very badly wrong for the team [Music] a policeman has suddenly spotted them [Music] [Music] we ran to the car in order to escape the policemen [Music] let's go shouting i want my hat i want my hat and that's all lisker and the policeman seem to be worried about it it's sort of a high fast almost we left for france and the beater remained behind because she was on the other part of the street we knew that she could come back to by herself i don't think they really thought they were going to cross the border into france with lishke in the trunk of the car but they knew they were going to cause embarrassment to the authorities the klarsfelds don't have their man but they hope the bungled abduction will hit the headlines to their disappointment the following day there is barely a mention it was very few and the next day a small article that a man was attacked in the street so we called the newspapers beater called like she if she was a neighbour of liska how is it possible that nothing is written while this poor mr liska was put on the ground and attacked by foreigners i said you know these were french jews who came to to kidnap the former police the chief of example in france the next day it was full of news because the police was obliged to say that yes there was an attempt of kidnapping pieta decides to go one step further she returns to cologne and claims responsibility for the crime so the police came and she presented herself as one of the kidnappers so immediately beaten say i organized that attempt of kidnapping because germany doesn't want to ratify the treaty between france and germany and kurtishka was our first attempt the police didn't want to arrest her they understood something was happening here which was an effective manipulation of the police if germany won't put a mass murderer behind bars then biata will sacrifice her own freedom [Music] march 31st 1971 pieta clarksfeld is back in cologne she wants to force the authorities to act against the former gestapo chief of paris it's one thing just to say he was head of this department in paris during the war but you've also got to have a paper trail and you've got to show quite what this man has done and you've got to show bits of paper with his name and initials on and so on part of the documents concerning the jews had remained here in france when the german retired we had a very solid and heavy file against ishka as they read the documentation of the deportation period his name was just all over every telex to eichmann and berlin he was what they call the death murder my parents they were actually trying to go to the non-occupied what they call the free zone and they were arrested on the border and they were sent immediately to auschwitz so they were actually guests in september i mean just a month and a half after we're separated [Music] thinking of them being so young they were in the early 40s you know i didn't want to think about the suffering this is too much for me to imagine [Music] it was intolerable to them that criminals of that level should go on unrevenged justice had to be meted out to lishgood in the company of holocaust survivors biata delivers their dossier on lishka to the prosecutor in cologne we met the prosecutor absolutely and delivered him the documents and i said you know here i am i say to you we wanted to kidnap leshkar we could not succeed but i bring in anyway his a file about him piata deliberately presents the prosecutor with a dilemma if he will arrest beater that will make a mobilization among the victims and if he will not arrest beater it will show that the german justice is unable to arrest people who act illegally like the nazi criminals the best situation for the clarksvilles was that liske would continue to go about his normal life and bayata would be thrown in jail now the authorities do act they don't arrest liska they are espio to glasfeld [Music] biata spends the next two weeks in austendorf prison and every moment of that time was well worth it to the klarsfelds because it embarrassed the official powers this young woman is in jail and this top nazi is walking around theater and i decided to oblige the german parliament to make a law giving the possibility to judge these criminals but serge knows that shaming politicians may not be enough there were powerful men of course against such a law and giving the possibility to judge nazi criminals in germany there was no appetite in germany to go around soul searching by you know arresting people like liska and bring them to trial there was just no demand for it [Music] the injustice of biata's incarceration becomes a cause celeb all the newspapers in france made huge articles there are massive protests organized by serge you know free biata without any powers of their own other than their own courage it's amazing to think that they found ways to use the press to affirm their moral position the authorities cave to public pressure and release pieta on bail they upped the ante they dramatized justice and injustice [Music] but for the clarksvilles the harder they fight to bring nazis to justice the more danger they face from those determined to stop them [Music] one day in their paris apartment they had um received a parcel seemingly full of chocolates from lunamara it was sent by somebody called seagal jewish name but the initial of the first name and the name were ss search was very suspicious sausage opened carefully the paper and inside was a box of candy and in the paper there's some black grains luckily the beater and the children were away box of candy which in fact was a bomb had been sent to them so i took the parcel to the police so he put it in a plastic shopping bag and walked it down to the police station and then one of his friends said hey what do you got in there serge and he goes hey i've got a bomb and the police examine it and they say you are lucky to be alive they discovered 300 grams of dynamite and 500 grams of nails this is half a kilo of high explosives that would have just torn you the flat completely to bits so indeed the class belts are very lucky there were bloods by extreme rightists in germany to kill us they put their lives their bodies on the line willingly these are threats we took them seriously but we never stop [Music] may 1973 vieta ups the ante again seven months pregnant and flanked by auschwitz survivors she marches into lishka's office to stage a protest she was never frightened she was never ever frightened [Music] now confronted by his accusers the modern business executive reveals his true gestapo colors he took a gun to put one of the demonstrators against the wall did he hate the clars felds he certainly was fearful of them he wouldn't have done this without the fact that he was afraid being punished slowly slowly with our demonstrative actions we put pressure on the gem societies the glaswelds are really savvy manipulators and they knew how to present a really good image to the public they wanted germany to deal with liske that was our strategy sears himself was a child of the holocaust i believe he was eight years old when his father was taken away it was september 1943 the gestapo burst into serge's home he along with his sister and mother hid in a secret compartment inside their closet and they started to look for us and one gentleman opened the door of the closet and he put all the sides all the clothes like that but it didn't touch the wood and in the morning when the germans were no more there we escaped the young surge didn't know what had happened to his father we phoned to the german prosecutor saying you know if you do nothing in order to judge those criminals one day somebody will come with an armed weapon and kill this guy despite the pressure there is still no movement among german lawmakers in december 1973 three years after their hunt began serge can wait no longer he will take the log into his own hands serge traveled alone with a pistol two cologne i knew that the threat of killing nazi criminals will not be believed until we would show it effectively if he couldn't get justice through the court system he would finally have to administer justice himself i waited liska to go out from his office to go to his car when he arrived to his car i by surprise arrived with a gun serge took that pistol and shoved it in his face he was shouting and uh afraid this guy i uh put the gun on his uh head flishka's eyes bulged out they immediately believed that he will be killed just like his victims 30 years earlier kurt liska is forced to stare death in the face one of those victims was sergi's father arnold clarksville like thousands of other french jews he was deported on the gestapo chiefs orders he was sent to auschwitz he survived until august 1944 and then he died was the single major figure in the murder of french jews who was still alive and still could be punished and if no one else was going to do it then he would do it i decided that i did not survive for nothing lishke thought he was about to die [Music] i decided not to kill because that would be an act of despair i didn't shoot i smiled i laughed and i left running shoving a revolver between the eyes of kurt liske was a symbolic murder this was his way of saying we want justice we don't want revenge it's our shed back to paris and again then with top phones to the german prosecutors i told them you see if we want to kill these criminals we can even with a gun even protected and it will happen if you do not do your duty eventually after much turning and throwing and a lot of pressure from the class felt eventually the law is passed we've obtained finally the ratification was done in january 1975. five years after their campaign began the new law is enacted it has dubbed the clarksville law in recognition of their tireless effort but their fight is far from over lishka and other nazi criminals must now be brought to judgment we were leading a war against these nazi criminals they had found a way to use their own ingenuity their own courage their own lack of fear about what might happen to them to accomplish great things july 1978 two years after the clarksville law was passed german police arrest kirk liska for the murder of 33 000 french jews i think the most important was that this man we had confronted before at this time never thought that one day they would be judged so it became possible to have a trial in cologne at that time we were very very happy the forthcoming trial stirs up a real hornet's nest of neo-nazi activity against the claws during the night we heard an explosion and they had told me what it is i believe it's our car in the garage at the bottom of the apartment block where the class felts live the car is blown to pieces by a car bomb subsequent investigations revealed that the car bomb was intended to go off when serge was driving his daughter to school so this was actually act of attempted murder says so much the bravery of the class felt so that doesn't stop them if you are obsessed with security you you cannot do anything october 23rd 1979 the kurt lishke trial opens even though lishken have been brought to trial the the class don't end it there i mean they never say never they decide the best way to help impress upon the german public the severity of the crimes is being tried for they have a lot of former french concentration camp inmates turning up wearing their concentration camp uniforms with this yellow star of david on it also on trial for war crimes orliska's deputy ernst heinrichsen and herbert hogan a high-ranking ss leader in wartime france they brought in the three defendants and put them in kind of a fenced in area and they look like three businessmen they had looks on their faces like oh why are you doing this to us you know what what is this all about we're not criminals for the verdict the klarsfelds pull one last stunt they charter a special train from france carrying 1500 jews it was the trains and the cattle wagons that took the jews eastwards from france through germany and to the extermination camps this train was seen as a highly symbolic act of bringing a train of jews french jews into germany for the trial [Music] it was a big march through the streets of cologne the youngsters were staying outside and shouting french jews who had been powerless suddenly felt yes we we are a people nine years after the clark fells first staked out kurt lisker's apartment all three defendants are found guilty i think uh catching those murderers is something that people like myself is here for my generation would feel a great deal of i would say the word joy you know justice had been served in some ways nobody would ever have identified the principles of the final solution in france if it weren't for the clarksville and ishka was sentenced to ten years of jail although liske was sentenced for ten years he in fact only serves five years and he's released in the mid-1980s on groundswill health and uh and he dies in a nursing home zlichika trial was for us a trial of those who lived unpunished in germany during more than 30 years and eventually were sentenced by a new germany with our work we obliged them to do something what they didn't want it's very hard to to imagine the depth of commitment of this couple they were bonded together in a commitment unto death if that's what it took the crimes are never forgotten the very end these criminals can be judged for the crimes he had committed [Music] you

Channel: Timeline - World History Documentaries

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Keywords: History, Full Documentary, Documentaries, Full length Documentaries, Documentary, TV Shows - Topic, Documentary Movies - Topic, 2017 documentary, BBC documentary, Channel 4 documentary, history documentary, documentary history, nazi hunters, gestapo chief, kurt lischka, occupied paris, germany ww2, nuremberg trials, nazi justice, nazis after ww2, cologne paris, cologne, nazi germany, ww2 documentary

Id: T0VkG-A9AAE

Length: 41min 57sec (2517 seconds)

Published: Mon Oct 18 2021