Operation: Finale is remarkably accurate to the true story of the capture of Nazi war criminal Adolf Eichmann (Ben Kingsley) with only a few changes for dramatic reasons. Directed by Chris Weitz and written by Michael Orton, one of several source materials Operation: Finale is based upon is Eichmann In My Hands, the memoir by Israeli agent Peter Malkin (played by Oscar Isaac) in the film.
Set in 1960 Argentina where Operation: Finale was shot on location, the film depicts how SS-Obersturmbannführer Adolf Eichmann, the architect of the Jewish Holocaust, was located living in Buenos Aires as “Ricardo Klement”, a supervisor at a Mercedes Benz factory. When Eichmann’s son Klaus (Joe Alwyn) begins dating a girl named Sylvia Hermann (Haley Lu Richardson), her father Lothar (Peter Strauss) becomes suspicious of Klaus’ father. When Lothar identifies Klaus’ father as Adolf Eichmann, he contacts the Israeli Mossad to avoid the Nazi sympathizers in the Argentinian government. The Israelis concoct a scheme to kidnap Eichmann and extradite him back to Israel to stand trial for war crimes. The capture team led by Rafi Eitan (Nick Kroll) and including Peter Malkin, who lost family members during the Holocaust, arrive in Argentina, survey Eichmann’s routine, and successfully apprehend him. Eichmann is held captive in a safe house for 11 days but the Mossad agents fail to extract a written confession. Finally, after Malkin interrogates and gets to know Eichmann on a human level, he’s able to get Adolf to sign. With Nazi loyalists giving chase, the Mossad extraction team manages to get Eichmann on a plane; the film ends with Eichmann about to stand trial in Israel and the closing credits is overlaid with live footage of the real-life trial, which was the first time that eyewitness testimony of the Holocaust was seen by a worldwide audience.
One of the biggest alterations the film made to the true story was in the final escape from Buenos Aires and it was purely for dramatic reasons: in real life, Eichmann’s son Klaus and 300 members of the Nazi-friendly authorities did search for Eichmann but there was no nail-biting close call where they entered the Israeli’s safe house just as the Mossad agents barely escaped with a drugged Adolf. Nor was there another close call at the airport where Peter Malkin had to run a landing permit from the airplane to the control tower so that the airplane barely escaped. In fact, the real Peter Malkin never even went to the airport with his compatriots and the airport guards not only believed that Eichmann was just a drunken officer sleeping off a binge but they laughed it off and sent them on their way. The real extradition was described by Rafi Eitan was “one of the easiest missions we did” but the true story’s details wouldn’t make for an exciting film.
Maybe Operation: Finale’s biggest liberty was turning one of the real-life Mossad agents into a woman. In the film, Mélanie Laurent plays Dr. Hanna Elian, the doctor who drugs Eichmann en route to the airport so they can make their escape. The real-life team doctor was a man named Yonah Elian; the gender switch was to give Peter Malkin a love interest in the film. In his memoir, Eichmann In My Hands, the real Malkin mentioned a female agent named Rosa who came to Argentina and posed as the wife of another agent but Peter’s romance with Hanna was pure fiction for movie purposes.
Adolf Eichmann didn’t deny that he oversaw the deportation of millions of Jews to extermination camps but he never admitted guilt and claimed he was simply following orders. At the end of his trial, the “Architect of the Holocaust” was sentenced to death in December 1961 for crimes against the Jewish people. Adolf Eichmann was hanged in Israel on May 31, 1962. As stated at the end of Operation: Finale, he was cremated and his ashes were spread in the Mediterranean Sea so that he would have no final resting place.
Next: Spotlight True Story: The Real Boston Scandal Explained
