Adolf Eichmann was one of the notorious architects of the final solution and a valued member of Hitler’s inner circle. The infamous SS Lieutenant Colonel had masterminded the transportation of millions of Jews to the death camps in German-occupied Poland. He now lived in Buenos Aires, where he worked at a car factory under the false identity of Ricardo Klement.

Josef Schwammberger was a sadistic SS commandant who also ran a number of death camps inside Poland. He had personally executed hundreds of Jews by shooting them in the back of the head. He was another Nazi butcher, with the blood of thousands of inmates on his hands. He presently lived in La Plata, a small town thirty miles south of Buenos Aires, where he worked at a petrochemical plant. Incredibly, his inherent arrogance meant he was the only one of the three who kept his original name, refusing to hide under a false identity.

The final member of the infamous three was the notorious “Angel of Death”, Doctor Josef Mengele. He’d earned his grotesque nickname as he was personally responsible for carrying out thousands of gruesome experiments on pregnant women and children at the infamous Auschwitz concentration camp. He’d used them as human guinea pigs for his medical research. Like Eichmann, he also now lived in a quiet suburb in Buenos Aires, under the alias of Gerhard Wolfgang, where he ran a small mechanical equipment shop. The two men had become friends and often met up socially.

Bormann had requested the three prominent Nazis stay overnight at El Blondi to attend a private audience with the Führer the following morning. In total, there were fifty guests who mingled together on the sprawling manicured lawns at the rear of the house. Dozens of white-suited staff hovered around the distinguished visitors, holding silver trays carrying champagne bellinis and assorted canapés. Circular wooden tables, dressed with immaculately pressed white tablecloths, were dotted around the lawns, surrounded by red velvet-backed chairs. A twenty-piece orchestra played classical tunes on a large temporary stage, built especially for the party, in the centre of the main lawn.

Hitler sat observing it all from a small oblong table positioned on the raised decking running along the back of the house. Juan and Eva Perón sat either side of him and the remaining three chairs behind the table were occupied by Braun, her two-year-old son, Richard, and a female interpreter who spoke fluent German and Spanish. Everyone wanted an audience with Hitler and, Bormann, in his role of host, was constantly on the move, chaperoning small select groups of guests to and from the Führer’s table, where they were greeted with a limp handshake and a fake smile.