Post and we forged a very Close Friendship right then and there and have known each other since. Souad mekhennet has won awards every award under the sun and a shot at and threatened and a jail jailed in every country could possibly imagine and thankfully she is allowed old wartime in the United States and in germany to keep away from those places. Nicholas was part of a project that was so extraordinary that it shuts the of worlds of holocaust scholarship, justice seekers following the mysterious case of this mae and dr. Albert heim. A doctor who carried out some of the most cruel and inhumane and experiments on human beings in modern history claims that we all know that white mauthausen he was known as dr. Death. A and after the war he escaped prosecution he lived as said gynecologist in germany but in 1962 war crimes investigators started to catch up with him and as they began to close in on him he disappeared without trace. That is the jumping off point for this incredible book. It is such a of pleasure to be here to talk to you about this. Give us some background has to dr. Albert heim was. He was born in austria from an austrian Frontier Town and that after world war i was divided between yugoslavia and austria. To the south end of the doors which is significant because that led to a strong surge of for each wing feelings his brother joined a and after medical school dr. Albert heim also joined the ss. So he was say committed true blue not see from the early days. From the daily lauria was clear his brother was says hard koreshs nazi as he could be he was part of the plush to turn austrias nazi then joined the austrian legion in germany with the family stories dr. Albert heim is a little more cautious. But it is possible after his brothers death at the beginning of world war ii with the invasion of crete his views hardened that led him that he would later do the autopsy. As a young man he received his medical degree in austria at the age of 25. This would be his profession was he committed ideologue or any sense of that . As he said in the beginning he was more looking at becoming a doctor and at one stage told his brother that he should not follow just hitlers ideology and he will not give you your degree. Finish george agreed first lindsay and lookout for political activism. But then something changed when his brother was killed from letters. He was killed in battles with ricky was tortured into one of his friends and they explain how he was tortured to death. Somehow this triggered something and left something behind with the dr. Albert heim who was much more committed as well to the nazi regime. Host how does the young man go from the 25 yearold graduate of medical school then to the ss . How does that process begin . And what begins to happen . According to records he was already a member of the Storm Troopers as we call them before he joined the ss. The famous anatomist who signed his supplement was one of the main figures would actually give lectures wearing of brown Storm Trooper uniforms. So to give a sense what the time was like in vienna in the late 30s it was a place where students dressed as nazis to torment you wish students in the hallways and then there was a logical progression to joined the ss. Host then what happens . Merrick is his first posting with more . His first assignment . Where does he go. He is a troop dr. To take care of inmates his job was to be of a doctor in the field but he eventually some of these doctors and of treating inmates. But he was in mauthausen he was accused killing inmates by injecting into their hearts and other criminal acts. So that is for you could see he would use his profession and to save lives and turn it into something that the accusations say into killing people. Host mauthausen is where most of the testimony we will get to that and how we know what happened but it was before that time that the camp of rights outside of a berlin . Do we know what happened what he did there or what his role was . Very little is known. When inmates was also at mauthausen who said he believed he had committed murders at other concentration camps as well and he had threatened him and said the will do it if you dont keep your mouth shut. That is as much as is known. But he was in the camps very early in the of course, youre asking witnesses to survive the first six years in order to survive and tell tales which unfortunately is not very likely. Host do we know when he is transferred to mauthausen . Yes. September 1941. Host to set to the context and i am sure most people here know that it was a concentration camp camp, notorious a labor camp, they did have a crematorium there. Right of the banks of the danube with the stunning setting i am sure you probably visited mauthausen im sure it is a contrast to go there to see the river and the valley below. He gets there 1942 and is the primary doctor or one of many . Do we know . According to witnesses one of many. One of the pages we later found in his briefcase, he actually wrote in one of his face spent six weeks only but during these six weeks according to witnesses and testimony committed the crimes. Host lets talk about those crimes in more detail. They are gruesome and we should warn folks this is not easy to here. Healthy humans would come. He was known to do what . There are two things he is associated with. One is the practice of injecting gasoline or chemicals directly into peoples hearts using large needles. That was frighteningly common in cancer attrition camps concentration camps before the mechanize killing that we associate with the holocaust like auschwitz. Host an experiment to other ways to kill people . Testimony that him and the pharmacist would have a stopwatch to see how long it took for people to die after injection when david tried different solutions. Host he was known to inspect the teeth of prisoners spinning he famously talks about the perfect byte of the teethirty and he was known to have several witnesses to said he had taken the skulls of victims as trophies. As we did research we found he had done a minor with the industry looked at becoming an oral surgeon as one of his possible future career path. You see the little certificates of dental studies and realizing is this where the obsession comes from . Host the war ends and he returns home and he moves to . First he was in custody and was a prisoner of war. But back then the accusations were not known. There were so many prisoners to process. So what happened eventually after he was released he decided to leave his hometown in 22 baden baden and met a woman who came from a rich family. They got married and he settled as a gynecologist and they had two sons. Actually she thought life was good and all was over. Host immediately after the war you writes about the tens of thousands or hundreds or millions of prisoners who were just released with only the hardened officers were questioned but even then tens of thousands of people. Inevitably many were released because there was nobody who could see or the testimony did not catch up. That is what happened in this case. There was an effort to incarcerate everyone than the realization you can imagine if you worry the general in charge that they could not run the trains or pick the crops as they did not start reducing people they would have a humanitarian catastrophe with millions of people to starve to death so everybody who was not in the ss can go. People like joe says mandela was also in custody during that time period it was easy enough time to escape his. Host dr. Albert heim goes to this village and sets up practice as a gynecologist what do we know about that period of time . Does he ever express anxiety or is he careful who he talks to or is he living openly as the same person . He was not thinking of any kind of danger because he thought everything was over he did not know the testimonies were coming from austria. Said he lived in a very big nice house married to a very rich woman and they had two sons they also enjoyed a social life you saw the picture that they used for hunting him shows him in a tuxedo taken body was going off to the casino. He had no ideas about the testimony until 1962 there was a phone call and said did you serve time at mauthausen . He understood basically that the nazi hunters were after him. The testimony was taken primarily from one man. As early as 46 coming he was an inmate at mauthausen who told war crimes investigators but there was another band who made it his mission to get. Host team brought to justice he wrote letters harassed the prosecutors. He was also an inmate. Witness many of the crimes. There were inmates who were forced to bnd and for every two to gather testified to what had happened there. There were several. Host he gives us the testimony so around what timeframe did he give this . Right after the war or shortly before he was contacted by were times in this were crimes investigators . They began talking about it to a few bonds after the war and he makes it his mission. Before dr. Albert heim has spent exonerated. Host what explains the gap between the time the testimony is taken and when investigators made the phone call . It would take some time to figure out there was no internet and then already in germany. It took time to find him that is why it took so long to figure out that dr. Albert heim settled. And when he mentioned these they tried to find cancer his ice hockey clubs gimmicky was a Champion National team. The former inmate was trying his best to find him but it took a lot of time to figure out where this person was. There is also another geopolitical side that you have allies of the United States and soviet union fighting together against nazi germany but very quickly the allies for the adversaries then as the cold war took shape germany went from the dylan to a highly courted both sides wanted them so much stays planted there is but the country and have. So the americans sees the prosecutions to pacify the german public. Host talk about the day where he gets the call. What happens at that point . Does dr. Albert heim panic . Does he sit on it . What do we know about that period a time when the war crimes investigators said are you dr. Albert heim and did you serve at mauthausen . Then what happened he contacted a law firm in frankfurt that was taking on the cases of former nazi war criminals that they took part of nuremberg. He planned to them and said i received a phone call from this institution and what is this about . One of the lawyers said it means they are after you and you have to get prepared. Either stay here and face charges but the of way it works is you will not succeed to prove if you are not guilty or look for another alternative. At that time also one thing we should mention is dr. Albert heim mother in a mob was a very strong character and her idea was to protect the family from any harm so what we now talking to his wife and other witnesses the mother in law basically pushed him to say he should leave the country and hide. Host how forthcoming was he with his family about what he did . That this is an injustice or did they have a sense of what he did . When we spoke to his wife and the family they said his wife said she knew he was in the us us but had no idea of any accusations. She also pointed out her family used to have a Jewish Girl School but didnt want anything to do with these actions and he always claimed he was innocent. Host she encourages him to leave and he leaves. Do we know roughly how long after he consulted with those lawyers . It was several months. It was a quiet summer between when he is first asked and when he speaks to the lawyer and when he finally flees it is after summer vacation. It is clear he made significant preparations during that time. He owned an Apartment Building he has secured loans, he was laying the groundwork he was very methodical and he knew at that point he would run. Host where did he go . First to his sisters house which is significant because she would play a role for much of his time in hiding. Then he took his brotherinlaws sports car and hightailed it across europe from germany to spain and then it is not entirely clear then he appears to have flown to morocco which is the first place he went into hiding for a bunker period. Host he was there for how long . Less than one year of one major miscalculation he appeared to have settled in the jewish quarter of tangier and did not realize that morocco had a very Good Relationship with the jews and has a good population to this day and he quickly realized he should find some place a little safer. We know he told some people that he did not feel secure because he figured out they were too nice to the jews and he was afraid the nazi hunters would find him there. Then he goes to egypt and why did he think he would be safe there . It is known egypt also welcome to a lot of former nazis and they even used former propaganda to help people set up the propaganda machinery. What is interesting about dr. Albert heim from what we know and the witnesses he did not really mixup with the germans. He tried to stay away from them as much as he could and was afraid by fixing up with them that they would find him. His only problem was he was as tall as nec. Host he was very fair. That is also vice he settled for places where he was sure there would not be very many europeans. He also arrived to the party just a little too late. There were many german scientists theyre building a Rocket Program whose biggest enemy at that time was israel and by the time dr. Albert heim had gotten there mossad had began a campaign to kill or intimidate nazi and a german scientist working in egypt. That is possible the reason he went to egypt is the colleague of his who was also famous for terrible experiments during the holocaust, he had fled to egypt as well and was discovered there and the egyptians said we dont have an extradition entreaty with germany and was allowed to live their openly but then one day he received a letter bomb in the mail but did nearly killed the letter carrier. Dr. Albert heim arrived just as the safe haven began to fall apart and he needed to exercise a great deal of caution. Host but basically you could go to egypt and not asked to many questions and you could feel like you would be okay more or less. We do know there were certain people who were trying to help them with paper work. Apparently he had to pay for that. We werent able to figure out who they were but for sure he had help. We do know about one of his partners who invested together with the egyptian to buy a hotel but he had to pay money and have helped. Host i want to go more in depth of his life in egypt but the story within the story which is about reporting the story. So let me ask about the man dr. Albert heim. I had never heard of him before i saw your story in the New York Times 2009 to learn he was the most wanted proxy war criminal. Plan did you first hear about him . The story in 2008 i received the phone call from an old source of mine covering terrorism. They said i needed to see you i cannot talk to about this on the phone. So we set up a meeting at the coffee shop spin make you do it was important because they would fly lew frankfort. Was of very reliable source. Then basically said to me i know you know, about jihad a about what about nazis . Then put down a photograph and said the you know, who this is . I had no idea. He said this is dr. Albert heim the nickname is dr. Death. To say that there was some idea. This is the photograph. If you ever going youtube there is a trailer that shows the original footage. We had a copy of the photograph now the idea is this person was hiding in a certain area of cairo. The source said i heard he was in cairo. The tip he was in a certain area but it do you know how large cairo is . 1 million people. That is all we had. I took a copy of the photograph and flew to cairo then it all started we were searching for three days going from hotel to hotel. Host the source told you he lived in a hotel. Was the tip he was living in a small hotel. Host it could have been 500. Trust may be had to go and knock on the door of many hotels. Host you fly to cairo and what do you do . Reject a copy of the photograph in good as people do you know, this person . Host and they would say no or why are you asking . They were curious coming egyptians are very curious why am i looking . Is the of father . No, no, no. Not my father. Gun and somebody said there is the place that used to be a hotel but they used to have foreigners so ask there. This is where we found the first witness. Host describe the place there was a broken sign a. But it was no longer a hotel they were renting a lot of rooms that used to be hotel rooms that i would ask the owners of the building and the person said know they are not spiking give you their numbers. Then he said he used to be of greater here than i showed the copy of the photograph then he started to get tears in his eyes he died here. I said what . But he used the different name it was clear they were talking about dr. Albert heim as they describe him. Host this is three days of work. You potentially find where he lived. You call the family. And i said can icu . I met the suns and the hotel owner of recognized him from the photograph to describe dr. Albert heim as basically theyre all coal like he adopted this egyptian family and described how he was trying to teach in english and reading about edison and buying chocolate cake and one actually he left behind a briefcase. I was in touch and we decided i should go alone so we dont drive too much attention because you came there together . No. For Additional Research we thought i should go alone he is almost 2 meters tall. [laughter] so the talk about the briefcase i was thinking can i see it . They said sure. Host did they ask you why . What did you tell them . Of course, i did not tell them who he was. I did not like i said i was a journalist and i was interested in the family i never told a fake story they knew they ever talking to a journalist we filmed some of the search but since they had no idea he was the most wanted nazi and we also needed hard evidence i did leave that part of the story out. Would happen to then is we met they brought the briefcase it was one of the reduced moments i had in my career. I have had many. When you opened a leather briefcase and find all of these sealed envelopes with his handwriting and i unseal them for the first time i was not wearing gloves which was a big mistake we figured out we all got sick because of that but he had a lot of hand written documents, testimony, letters and we went through this together piece by piece. Host talk about what was inside the briefcase. Dr. Albert heim liked to keep order so there were five with medical records and an envelope he wrote personal letters, a bank account information. Personal letters from his family be found letters especially the one son who later basically we interviewed him he would send letters to his father describing how he played asking you when he w