Operation Eichmann

Low budget drama about the capture and covert extradition of Adolf Eichmann from Argentina to Israel by a team of Mossad operatives. The 1961 film was released less than a year after the operation (May 1960) and about a year before Eichmann's execution for war crimes (June 1962). The story largely follows an increasingly paranoid Eichmann as he tries to keep one step ahead of the Nazi hunters and to maintain his standing amongst expatriate Nazis (perhaps ODESSA, if such an organisation really existed) and probably would have been more interesting if the focus had been on the searchers. The film may now be best known for its casting: Eichmann, one of the most sought after Nazi war criminals and 'architect of the Holocaust' is played Werner Klemperer, who four years later became famous as the bumbling Col. Klink, commandant of a German POW camp in the improbable hit comedy "Hogan's Heroes", and Rudolf Höss, the Commandant of Auschwitz (not to be confused with Rudolf Hess, Deputy Führer who died in Spandau Prison in 1987), is portrayed by John Banner, who subsequently played Klink's jolly but incompetent subordinate Sgt. Schultz. Ironically, both Klemperer and Banner were from Jewish families. There are a number of films/documentaries about the hunt for Eichmann that came out after the trial which may be more accurate and complete (e.g. The House on Garibaldi Street (1979), The Man Who Captured Eichmann (1996), The Hunt for Adolf Eichmann (1994), Operation Finale (2018)).

The most chilling scene is to see the SS characters of Werner Klemperer and John Banner (Four years before "Hogan's Heroes") matter of factly greeting the Jewish arrivals to the death camp. The contrast between the high comedy of their work together later on belied how easy a shift of perspective of the Third Reich could be achieved. I recommend this film just for this extremely chilling scene alone.

This little known movie deserves to be seen by a wider audience. Werner Klemperer chills the viewer to the bone with his absolutely convincing performance as the architect of the Final Solution.

Made on a low budget, the movie manages to look and feel very authentic in its recreation of the Third Reich, particularly the dreadful sequence at Auschwitz. The fear that that part of the movie made me feel was palpable. Though fairly restrained for its time, the death camp sequence was the stuff of nightmares.

The film is less successful during the last two parts of the story, but Klemperer never lets up in his complete immersion in his role. Highly recommended.

Werner Klemperer plays Adolf Eichman in an Allied Artists production covering his implementation of the "Final Solution", his escape from Allied forces, through his capture by Israeli in Argentina.

Werner Klemperer gives a fine performance in the title role. Someone like me, used to his comic performance in HOGAN'S HEROES -- John Banner, who played "Sergeant Schultz" in that show, plays Rudof Hess -- will be surprised at his performance: fanatic, intelligent, assured of his position and approaching each problem, whether it's how to kill more Jews or how to get to safety, as an intellectual puzzle to be solved: in a word, chilling. It's a portrait of a real-life villain that at first seems too stereotyped to be interesting. Yet Klemperer plays the role with such intelligence that he is fascinating in his portrayal.

Director R.G Springsteen spent most of his career as a solid director of B Westerns. Given a solid cast and a tough subject, he handles the subject well. He is brilliantly aided by the camera of Joseph Biroc, who lights the scenes set in Nazi Germany with a flat, low light that reduces everything to grey. There are no whites or black in Germany, just a greyness that reduces all morality to nullity. Only the later sequences show any light. Yet every scene is shot with a clarity that becomes frightening.

It's a tough movie to watch for an American Jew who grew up in the Post-War era, in a millieu of older relatives and and their friends who had blue numbers tattooed on their arms. It must have been a tough movie to convince the producers to make and to cast; Joseph Schildkraut reportedly turned down $300,000 to take the lead. It's clearly a movie that everyone involved thought had to be made, and made as well as they could.

They succeeded. I don't need to see it again.

It's 1941. Adolf Eichmann (Werner Klemperer) is the ruthless Nazi leader who implements the final solution. As the tide of war turns, he starts cremating the victims to cover up the crime. At the end of the war, he manages to escape with a bag of jewels and Anna Kemp. He intends to lead a new worldwide Nazi organization while Israeli operatives pursue him across the globe.

I've never seen Hogan's Heroes so Klemperer is a meaningless name to me. All I can say is that his cold determination and ruthless arrogance is frightening. The first half of the movie is almost entirely pointed at his character. The second half is the chase following both sides. There is some intriguing elements although there is probably a lot of fictionalization. I'm also troubled that Eichmann is the antagonist of the story. Nevertheless, this is a compelling story with a compelling performance.