Nazis in the CIA

The BKA,

the German Federal Police in Wiesbaden.

For six years the agency is run by a man

integral to its inception,

Paul Dickopf.

A top civil servant, with a seemingly clean record,

he claims he opposed the Nazis.

Until 1971,

Willy Brandt is Chancellor.

He is the top criminologist

in West Germany.

Anyone who criticized him,

or posed any kind of threat to him,

was never allowed to forget it.

He held a grudge and destroyed such people.

Dickopf doesn't only

forge a career for himself in West Germany.

In 1968 he becomes head of Interpol.

It's now his job

to fight crime on an international scale.

When Dickopf left,

Genscher, his Interior Minister of the time

held him out as an example

to police all over Germany.

After Dickopf's death, in 1973,

staff researching files

to compile the obituary...

make an astonishing find.

They turn up documents

outing Dickopf as a staunch Nazi.

His lifelong lie

finally comes to light.

Dickopf was not only a member of the SS

and a Nazi spy.

Shortly before the end of the war,

he switched sides to start working as an agent

for the Americans.

Numerous CIA documents

given insight into the work of Caravel,

which was Dickopf's CIA code name.

The highest ranking member

of the German police,

sold confidential information

from the government.

Chancellor, Willy Brandt,

was of particular interest to the Americans.

And Dickopf readily provided the information...

as did many other Nazis, during the Cold War.

They became willing helpers,

spies, because American intelligence services

used their pasts to blackmail them.

The Americans were never very bothered

if the people they needed have closes ties

to mass murderers, or extremists,

or terrorists.

The ends justified the means.

American intelligence services

faced a new enemy...

Communism.

The US enlisted former Nazis as spies.

There was no attempt to punish them

for their war crimes.

As the Cold War grew hot...

these Nazi collaborators...

became pawns...

of Western intelligence services,

for a variety of both psychological

warfare type missions...

covert operations,

and this type of thing.

Only now, are Secret Service files

from the Cold War, accessible.

And they contain documents about Nazis,

who became CIA spies.

Another case, that has recently surfaced,

is that of Eugen Steinle,

a die-hard Nazi

who led firing squads in the Soviet Union.

Steinle was thought to be among those killed,

when a Lufthansa plane crashed, near Nuremberg,

on the 20th of April, 1945.

Eyewitnesses saw the burning plane in the sky.

And the crash sight is still visible

in the Piesenkofen forest today.

At the time, locals collected up everything

that they found around the wreckage.

One item recovered was a briefcase

containing documents and IDs.

Among them, was one belonging to Steinle.

The briefcase was taken

to the local Nazi commander's office.

A few days later...

US troops marched into the area.

And the briefcase was ceased

by members of the army's secret service.

The Americans were looking for Nazis

they could use for their own purposes.

And every personal detail

would help them in their search.

They suspected Steinle, was still alive.

CIA documents,

listing the contents of the briefcase,

make it possible to reconstruct

what really happened.

The Lufthansa plane takes off from Tempelhof

on April the twentieth, 1945

while the battle for Berlin is raging.

Those on board know it's only a matter of time

before the Russians and the Western allies, take power.

There are more than twenty passengers on the condor...

among them, a number of men in leather overcoats.

The captain takes off under the cover of darkness.

The planned destination is Spain...

with a fuel stop in Munich.

But the weather is bad.

I can still remember my father

telling us over breakfast...

about a low-flying plane...

making such a racket.

A friend lives very near to here

and that evening, a burning plane

flew over her roof.

Panic-stricken, her mother grabbed hold

of both the children

and threw them and herself to the ground.

She said that since the father

had died in the war

the three of them should die together.

The plane crashes in a forest with no survivors.

Were there high-ranking Nazis

on-board the condor, trying to get to Spain?

American intelligence flies

the briefcase and the documents to the US.

The agents in Washington know the end of the war

will herald a new chapter

in the confrontation of the superpowers.

And, in order to secure an advantage...

they will recruit former, top Nazis.

They strike it lucky.

One man in the files

is of particular interest to the Americans...

Eugen Steinle.

Their research tells them...

he was responsible for mass murders in Russia.

The agents suspect he is still alive.

As a number of witnesses

report having seen him, after the crash.

Locals near the crash sight are questioned again.

As a war criminal,

Steinle is valuable to the Americans.

It was impossible...

to systematically...

uh, recruit

intelligence agents...

without...

systematically recruiting war criminals.

Those things went together.

They launch a manhunt

across Germany, for Eugen Steinle...

who fled to his home, in the Black Forest.

The net closes

and in autumn, 1945

the former SS intelligence officer,

turns himself in for interrogation.

He knows his only chance is to tell the truth.

A defector, who has something to hide

murders, for example

can be blackmailed.

And is therefore valuable

in the hands of his new bosses.

Steinle, collaborates.

His testimony on the documents from the briefcase

help the Americans to uncover

an entire network of German spies in Spain.

It consists of dozens of ex-Nazis,

who followed the collapse of the Third Reich,

are already working

on their next crazy idea,

the Fourth Reich,

which translates to worldwide fascism.

The Americans observe them...

and recruit the Spanish players

to work on their behalf.

Following his interrogation,

Steinle is sentenced to death by hanging.

But is then, surprisingly pardoned.

Did the Americans enlist him and influence the verdict?

There is no proof as important files are missing

from the US interrogation center, in Oberursel.

Nazis like Dickopf and Steinle

had become agents.

But the US intelligence services

want more than just spies, they want Nazi traitors.

Right up until the war was over

the allies believed the Nazis had an Alpine redoubt.

Even now the myth of missing Nazi gold,

still lures treasure hunters to the area.

But do these treasures really exist?

Towards the end of the war German industry made plans