Tonight. As steve said, bob has reduced there for about 30 minutes in the back Something Like to ask him to sign the book, im sure he will be happy to do so. Thank you again. [inaudible conversations] visit the booktv. Org to watch any of the programs you see your online. Type the author or book title in the search bar on the upper left side of the page and click search. You can share anything you see on booktv. Org easily by clicking share on the upper left side of the page and selecting format. Booktv streams live online for 40 hours every weekend with top nonfiction books and authors. Booktv. Org. Journalists turn one and Souad Mekhennet recount the men and are not see doctor albertine accused of violent acts against the imprisoned while at the mauthausen concentration camp in 1941. The authors report that he escaped allied arrest following world war ii and reinvented his life in egypt. This is about one hour 15 minutes. Maybe i should there we go. Thank you so much. Welcome everybody. My name is guy brass and i host a show on npr. I was in his reporter, correspondent and host which ill explain why that is while the in a moment. It is my absolute pleasure to be here with these two incredible journalists. Tran one is an awardwinning correspondent from the New York Times. He was Berlin Bureau chief from 20072013. I have long admired his work from afar. This is the first time ive make in in person, but as somebody once covered germany, its a great pleasure to read somebody covered germany with intelligence and grace and humor and real depth and sensitivity over six years in the country. Souad mekhennet is somebody i know very, very well. We met in hamburg shortly after september 11 attack when she was working, she was an Investigative Reporter working with peter fenn from the Washington Post. She was in this room here today and we forged a very close friendship right then and there and have known each other ever since. Souad has won every award under the sun. She has been threatened and jailed and shot at in every country you could possibly imagine. And thankfully shes spending more time in francogerman in here in the u. S. , keeping away from those places. So in 2009, souad and nicholas part of a project that was so extraordinary, it really shook the world holocaust scholarship, justice seekers who have been following the ministry, ministries case of the man, aribert heim. He was a doctor who carried some of the most cruel and inhumane experiments on human beings in modernism places a really etched in, names that we all know. He was known as doctor death. After the war he escaped prosecution. He lived as a gynecologist for a few years in germany, but in 1962, war crimes investigators started to catch up with him. And as they begin to close in, he disappeared without a trace. That is the jumping off point for this incredible book, souad and nicholas, welcome. And again, its such a pleasure to be able to talk to but the story. First of all give us some background as to who he was. Who was aribert heim . Aribert heim was born in austria in a small austrian Frontier Town that, after world war i, was actually divided between yugoslavia and austria, have the talent and the south, half down on the north which is significant because that led to a strong surge of right wing feelings in the town. His brother joined the ss, after medical school, aribert heim also joined the ss. So you as a committed true blue, true believing nazi from the early days. His brother, in the family lore and in some letters that have cropped up, it was clear his brother was as hardcore a nazi as an austrian could be. He took part in a 1934 push that failed to turn austria into knots and he joined the austin region in germany. In the family stories, aribert heim is lemoore cautious, kind of the one who says to look before you leap. But its possible after his brothers death at the beginning of world war ii with the invasion of crete that his views also hardened and let him do what he would later do at mauthausen. He received his medical degree in austria at the age of 25. This was going to be his profession, hes going to be a doctor. Was there any sense at the time he was a committed ideologue . As nicholas said, at the beginning who is actually more committed towards becoming a doctor and actually also at one stage told his brother that he should not actually follow hitlers ideology. He told them hitler is not going to give you your degree. So finish your degree first and then you can look out for political activism. But something changed when his brother was killed, and we know from letters and also from his brother was killed in battle . Actually he was tortured. One of his friends later on went to heims mother explain how is basically tortured to death. This is somehow triggered something and let something behind in aribert became much more committed as well to the nazi ideology. So how did this young man go from a 25 euros graduate of medical school to the ss . How does that process begin . And then what happens at that point . According to records he was already a member of the Storm Troopers as we call them, before he joined the ss. The famous anatomist edward who signed his obama and do a sort of one of the main figures his diploma, medical school those days would give lectures wearing a brown Storm Trooper uniform. So to give you a sense of sort of what the times wer were liken vienna in the late 30s, it was really a place where students dressed as nazis good beat and torment jewish students in the hallways. It was a very logical progression and to join the ss. So what happens then . Where is his first posting . What is his first assignment . Where does he go . He started first as a troop doctor. He was actually supposed to take care of inmates. His job was to be a doctor for all in the field . In the field, but then eventually some of these doctors also ended up treating inmates, and thats the point that was actually the most interesting one this time in mauthausen in the concentration camp where he been accused of like killing inmates by injecting gasoline into the hearts and committing other criminal acts. So thats basically where you could see that he used his profession that action was supposed to save lives and turn it into something, as the accusations say, into telling people. Mauthausen of course is where most of the testimony, we will get to some of that and how we know about what happened there, but it was before that time that he was at mauthausen, they cant write outside of berlin . Correct. Do we know what happened there, what he did, what his role was . Very little is known about what he did there. There was one inmate who was also at mauthausen who said that he believed he had committed murders at other concentration just as well, and that he had threatened him and said we will do it like we did and i running brook, if you dont keep your mouth shut. So thats as much as is really known. He was in these camps very early in the war, and so youre asking witnesses to survive in for six years and a nazi concentration camp in order to survive and other tales, which unfortunately was not very likely. Spent do we know roughly when he transferred to mauthausen . Yes. He arrived in i believe late september 1941. To justice would set set the context, and im sure most people in the old about that camp. That was a concentration camp come into towards the camp, primarily a labor camp with the huge quarry. They did have a crematorium there. Right on the banks of the danube. Its stunning setting. Im sure you probably visited mauthausen and its quite contrast to go there and see the river and the river valley below. He gets there in 1942 and he becomes the primary doctor, or he becomes one of many doctors . Do we know . He became according to witnesses one of many doctors. Actually in one of the pages that we later on found in his briefcase, im sure we will get to that, he actually wrote in one of his papers he spent six weeks only, but those were his words, during these six weeks he, according to witnesses and testimony, committed these crimes that we talk about. So lets talk about some of those crimes in more detail. I mean, they are quite gruesome and we should warn folks that this is not easy to hear. Healthy humans would come in. He was known to do what . As souad said, 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 actually frighteningly common in concentration camps before the advent of the mechanized killing that we associate with the holocaust, with places like auschwitzbirkenau. That was an attempt to experiment with fast ways of killing people . Theres testament that he and the camp pharmacist would have a stopwatch and see how long it took for people to die after injection which they tried a different solutions, other things. He was known to inspect the teeth of prisoners . Jan. He famously talks about the perfect bite, you know, of the teeth. And he was known to have several witnesses said that he had taken those goals of victims the skulls of victims. We found he had done sort of a minor had looked into becoming an oral surgeon as one of his possible future career paths. You are seeing these little sort of certificates of dental studies and realizing, you know, is this why, is this where this obsession comes from . The war in his, he returns home, he moves the badenbaden, is that right speakers well, he was first in custody. He was actually a prisoner of war for some time, but back then the accusations werent known. There were so many prisoners to process. Absolutely. So what happened was then eventually after he got released, he decided to leave home down and went to badenbaden, and actually met this woman who came from a rich family. Actually went to heidelberg first. He met her, they got married and he settled eventually as a gynecologist, practiced there, and they had two sons. Life seemed fine. He actually thought life was good and all was over. Immediate after the war you write about the tens of thousands, the hundreds, millions really of prisoners who were just released en masse but only with a hardened ss officers were question. But even then youre talking about tens of thousands of people. And so inevitably many of them were released because there was no eye the people who what they did were dead, or the testimony didnt catch up with that person you. Thats what happened in this case. I mean, there was an effort to sort of in cars with everyone and then there was this realization, you can imagine if youre the general in charge of germany after the war, they couldnt run the trains, they couldnt pick the crops. If they didnt start releasing people they would have this humanitarian catastrophe with millions of people starving to death. So they just started reading these broad categories. Everyone who wasnt in the ss can go. People like Joseph Manilow was also in custody during that time period there goes and these enough time to escape. So heim goes to the village, this town and sets up the practice eventually as a gynecologist. What we know about that period of time. Does he ever express in anxiety . Is he careful about who he talks to, or is he essentially living openly as the same person . He was not really thinking about any kind of danger because he thought everything was a. He had no idea that there were these customers come from austria. Testimonies. He lived in a big nice house but he was married to a very rich woman, and they had two sons and they also enjoyed social life. So one of the pictures that you saw that was used for hunting and basically showed him in a tuxedo and this was taken while he was going on with his life to the casino basically. He had no idea about the testimony until 1962, and there was a phone call and somebody called him and basically asked, are you dr. Aribert heim and did you serve time at mauthausen . And the attitude basically that the nazi hunters were after him. This was testimony that was taken primarily from one man, joseph cole speak with joseph goal was the first. Early 1936 he began to tell he was an inmate . An inmate of mauthausen who told war crimes investigators about what aribert heim had done. But it was really another man named karl who made it his mission, you could say, to get aribert heim brought to justice. He wrote letters and harassed the prosecutors he was also an inmate . Yes. He witnessed many of these crimes of . There were a core group of inmates who were forced to work in the infirmary or the surgical ward, if you will, who, together, testified to what happened there, to what had been done there. There were several of them. So he gives his testimony. Around what time frame . I mean, did he give this right after the war or did he give it shortly before heim was contacted by war crimes investigators . Really starting an ugly 1947 already. So joseph kohl begins talking about it, 90 for six just a few months after the war and kofman makes it his mission while heims been exonerated and set free actually. So what expense the gap between the time when the testimony is taken and a time when investigators finally made a phone call in 1962 . It took some time for them to figure where he was basically because you should not forget this was days of no internet, witnesses actually gave their testimony in austria. He was then already in germany at the time. So took some time to really find them. And that is why it took so long for them to figure out that heim basically settled in boston baden. When nick mentioned was very aggressive also by trying to find heim to his ice hockey club. He was a champion ice occupant. He played on National Teams spent exactly. This former inmate really was trying his level best to find him is that me . But it usually took a lot of time to figure out who this person was. I think if i could add one thing. I think theres also an important geopolitical side to this as well, which was that you had allies, United States and soviet union, who are fighting together against nazi germany, but very quickly the allies became the adversaries and thats the cold war took shape, germany went from being the villain to being a highly courted, potential ally. In fact, both sides wanted germany so much a split the country in half and each got one. And so you can simultaneously see the soviets and the americans seize their war prosecutions to pacify the german public. Lets talk about that day when he gets the call. What happens at that point . Does heim panic . Desi sort of sit on it for a couple of days . What do we know about that period of time in 19 seated you when war crimes investigators said, are you aribert heim, and did you serve at mauthausen . Well, he understood they were after him and then what happened was he contacted actually a law firm in frankfort that was famous for taking on the cases of former nazi war criminals. They took part in the nuremberg processes, and he went to them and basically passed, i received a phone call from this and this institution, so what is this about . One of the lawyers basically said, so it means they are after you and you have to get prepared. There are two choices. Either stay here and you face the charges, but the way it works or it looks like its your not really succeed in proving you are not guilty, or you have to look for another alternative. At that time also and then we should mention is heims motherinlaw was a very strong character and her premier thing was basic to secure and safe family from any harm. So what we know talking to his wife and other witnesses, the motherinlaw basically pushed him and said he should actually leave the country and hide somewhere. How forthcoming was he with his family about what he did . He just said look, theyre after me, this is an injustice, or did they really have a sense of what he did . So from, when we spoke to his wife in the family, they said he had, his wife said she knew he was in the ss but she had no idea about any kind of accusations. And she also pointed out that, for example, her family used to have a role school and the youth of jewish girls and they do want an interview with these kinds of actions. He always claimed that he was innocent. So she encourages him to leave, and he leaves. Do we know roughly how long after he consulted with those lawyers in frankfort . Well, it was several months. Theyre sort of the quiet summer between when he first asked about this and when he speaks to the lower and then when he finally flees, its after the summer vacation. And so its clear that he made significant preparations during that time. He owned an Apartment Building and he was worrying about fixing the border. He secured loans. You can see him laying the groundwork. He was a very methodical person and knew that he was, at that point i think already that he was going to run. So where did he go . First, he went to his sisters house, which is significant because his sister would play a role for much of his time in hiding. And then he took his brotherinlaws sports car and high tailed it across europe, driving from germany to spain. And then from spain, its not entirely clear how we got there but he appears to have flown to tangier and rocco which was the first place that he went into hiding for a longer period. He was there for about he was there for even less than a year. One major risk isolation that he made was he appeared to have settled in the jewish quarter of tangier, did not realize that as souad can elaborate, that morocco had a very Good Relationship with the jews, still have the Jewish Population of today, and he quickly realized that he probably should find someplace a little safer. We know he actually told some people that he didnt feel secure in morocco because they figured out he was too nice to the jews and he was afraid the and nazi hunters would come after him and find him there. He makes his way to egypt or why egypt . Why did he pick egypt and why did he think he would be safe there . Because actually its known that egypt also welcomes a lot of former nazis and should help to build up the rocket system there. They even used some of the former propaganda, nazi propaganda or people to help them set up their propaganda machinery. But what is so interesting about heim, from what we know and all the witnesses accounts, he did not really makes up with the germans. He tried to stay away from them as much as he could, and was actually afraid by mixing up with them, you know, they would find him. His only problem was, i mean, he was actually more or less as tall as nick. For somebody looking for being as tall absolutely. Thats what he also was selling for places where he was sure that there wouldnt be many german people or europeans. He also sort of a ride to the party a little too late, if you will. There have been many german scientist theyre building a Rocket Prog