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Hitler is alive and in hiding in final season of ‘Hunters,’ Amazon’s series about Jews killing Nazis
Spoilers for the first and second seasons of “Hunters” follow.
(JTA) – When Amazon Prime released the first season of “Hunters” in 2020, it advertised its Nazi-hunting TV show as “Inspired By True Events.”
That was true only in the loosest possible sense of the term. Starring Al Pacino and Logan Lerman and produced by Jordan Peele, “Hunters” told a bloody, souped-up, almost entirely embellished story of a Jewish-led team of multiracial Nazi hunters in the 1970s trying to stop a “Fourth Reich” from rising in the United States.
The show was immediately controversial: Series creator David Weil, the grandson of Holocaust survivors, had to defend his show from the Auschwitz Memorial, which harshly criticized “Hunters” for — among other scenes — depicting a human chess game at Auschwitz that never took place.
Despite all that, “Hunters” still had some basis in reality. There were, in fact, a handful of Jewish Nazi hunters active across the Americas at that time, most famously Simon Wiesenthal (played in the series by Judd Hirsch), who did succeed in bringing several prominent Nazis to justice.
Three years later, “Hunters” has, similarly, used the historical record as a mere suggestion for its second and final season, which debuts Friday and tells an outrageous story about hunting Hitler himself. Here’s how viewers can separate fact from fiction in season 2.
Hitler in Argentina
The end of the first season hinted that things were about to go seriously off the rails, as the “real” Hitler and Eva Braun were revealed to be happily alive and hiding out in Argentina — seemingly validating decades’ worth of baseless conspiracy theories about the Nazi leader’s supposed escape from his Berlin bunker in 1945. (Also throwing things for a loop: the reveal that Pacino’s character, who had presented himself as the hero’s Holocaust-survivor grandfather, was secretly the Nazi “butcher” they had been hunting in disguise, and the man they killed after a season-long hunt was the real survivor.)
In the second season, the disbanded Hunters reunite in 1979 to follow Hitler’s trail to Argentina, where many real-life Nazis did hide out. Meanwhile, in flashbacks to 1975, Pacino’s Nazi “butcher” works furiously to cover his tracks as he poses as a successful Jewish businessman and philanthropist in the United States.
Hitler-survival conspiracy theories seem to, well, keep surviving. In the decades since the war’s end, many conspiracy theories regarding Hitler’s fate have proliferated, and a good number of them coalesce around the unsupported claim that he, like other top Nazi commanders, was ferreted out of Germany and into South America via a secret underground network. “Hunting Hitler,” a recent top-rated History Channel docuseries, milked three seasons out of the idea.
But of course there were Nazis who successfully escaped persecution at Nuremberg by fleeing to South America, and “Hunters” crafts its Hitler narrative on the scaffolding of their real-life stories. The most infamous case involved death camp commander Adolf Eichmann, who hid in Argentina until Mossad agents uncovered his location and kidnapped him in 1960’s Operation Finale to stand trial in Jerusalem.
The Kreisky-Peter-Wiesenthal Affair
In the universe of the show, the fake Meyer played by Pacino is friends with Wiesenthal, a seasoned Nazi hunter. When the two meet in 1975 in an early episode of the second season, Meyer congratulates Wiesenthal on his recent success in Austria.
This is a reference to a real-life 1975 political scandal, in which Wiesenthal and a team of researchers revealed the past Nazi activities of Austrian politico Friedrich Peter as the country’s Jewish chancellor, Bruno Kriesky, prepared to offer Peter’s right-wing party a role in his ruling coalition.
Wiesenthal’s actions led to a falling-out between him and Kriesky, who variously called him a “Jewish fascist” and a member of the Gestapo. But the Nazi hunters declared victory over having rooted out the S.S. past of a prominent postwar politician. (Peter’s party never joined the coalition.)
‘Reclaiming’ Jewish-owned businesses in Europe
In an early scene of the second season, one of the disguised hunters walks into an Austrian candy shop in 1979 and innocently inquires how long the shopkeeper has owned it. The store has been in his family for generations, comes the reply.
But, the hunter muses, there is a strange indentation on the doorpost — almost like a mezuzah. Could the shop have, in fact, been Jewish-owned before the Nazis came to power?
It turns out the hunter is right, and the shopkeeper will pay dearly for his denials. Again, the general arc of this narrative starts with real history, as there are countless examples of Nazis having seized Jewish-owned properties and businesses and destroyed the records of Jewish ownership, making it nearly impossible for surviving Jews after the war to reclaim their properties.
Author Menachem Kaiser recently explored how Nazi property seizures altered his own family history in the nonfiction book “Plunder,” which won the Sami Rohr prize for Jewish literature.
Frank Sinatra’s Jewish activism
As part of Al Pacino’s character’s disguise as a Holocaust survivor in postwar America, he becomes an active philanthropist to Jewish causes. At one point, he can’t help but brag that he convinced Frank Sinatra to make a hefty donation.
In fact, the famous crooner, despite not being Jewish himself, was a vocal and documented supporter of Jewish causes. He was presented with awards from Hebrew schools; visited Israel many times and helped build a youth center in Nazareth; owned a $10,000 yarmulke; and even gave his son, Frank Sinatra Jr., the Jewish middle name of Emmanuel. After Sinatra’s death, to avoid paparazzi, his body was hidden in a Los Angeles Jewish funeral home for decades.
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Pope Leo Calls War in Middle East a ‘Scandal’ to Humanity
Pope Leo XIV is welcomed by Lebanese President Joseph Aoun and officials upon arrival at Rafic Hariri International Airport, during his first apostolic journey, in Beirut, Lebanon, November 30, 2025. Photo: REUTERS/Mohammed Yassin
Pope Leo on Sunday said death and suffering caused by the war in the Middle East are a “scandal to the whole human family,” renewing his plea for an immediate ceasefire.
As the US-Israeli war on Iran enters its fourth week, the first US pope said that he continues to follow with “dismay” the situation in the Middle East and in other regions torn apart by war and violence.
“We cannot remain silent in the face of the suffering of so many people, the defenseless victims of these conflicts. What hurts them hurts the whole of humanity,” Leo said at his weekly Angelus prayer in St. Peter’s Square.
“I strongly renew my appeal for us to persevere in prayer, so that hostilities may cease and the way may finally be paved for peace,” he added.
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Hundreds Wounded in Iran Missile Attacks Across Central, Southern Israel, Including Near Nuclear Site
A drone view shows a damage in a residential neighborhood, following a night of Iranian missile strikes which injured dozens of Israelis, amid the US-Israel conflict with Iran, in Dimona, southern Israel, March 22, 2026. Photo: REUTERS/Roei Kastro
More than 200 people were wounded in several Iranian strikes on central and southern Israel over the weekend, including children who were seriously injured, after Israeli air defenses failed to intercept at least two ballistic missiles, prompting the defense minister to threaten to send Iran “back decades.”
Fifteen people were injured on Sunday following an Iranian cluster missile strike in the central Israeli cities of Tel Aviv, Petah Tikva, and Ramat Gan. By early evening, several homes and roads were damaged by the strikes.
A direct hit by a missile launched from Iran the prior evening on Arad and Dimona in southern Israel caused widespread damage to buildings and prompted the evacuation of nearly 300 people to hospital. As of Sunday afternoon, 18 children were still hospitalized.
A ballistic missile carrying a payload of several hundred kilograms of explosives landed next to residential buildings in Dimona, with the shockwave ripping through them and leaving about 30 people wounded, including a young boy.
Israel’s Shimon Peres Negev Nuclear Research Center, located roughly eight miles southeast of the city, was likely the target, analysts said. But according to the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), the site was not harmed in the strikes.
“Information from regional states indicates that no abnormal radiation levels have been detected,” the UN nuclear watchdog tweeted.
Iranian state TV said on Saturday the salvos were in response to an attack on Iran’s Natanz nuclear facility earlier that day.
Tonight, the Iranian regime unleashed a devastating hail of missiles on southern Israel, purposefully striking civilians in Arad and Dimona.
Over 100 people, including many children and elderly, inured.
This is a blatant war crime. Pure terrorism. Yet, world is silent! pic.twitter.com/EBLLrxuJ9t
— Arsen Ostrovsky (@Ostrov_A) March 22, 2026
At Soroka Medical Center in Beersheba, more than 160 injured patients arrived overnight, including over 70 children, according to Prof. Shlomi Codish, the hospital’s director. He described the influx as a “highly complex mass casualty event” involving blast injuries, shrapnel wounds, and trauma, including critically and moderately injured patients who required urgent surgery.
Codish said authorities were working to provide “immediate support and shelter” for those impacted, adding that entire families were evacuated to the hospital.
“The challenge is not only medical but also human. The strike hit the heart of a civilian neighborhood, and entire families arrived together, injured and distressed. We worked to map family connections in order to provide coordinated care and preserve family unity as much as possible,” he told The Algemeiner.
The missiles in both Arad and Dimona were engaged by air defenses, but the interceptors failed to bring them down.
In both cases, most of those injured in the missile did not make it to bomb shelters in time.
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, visiting the scene of the strike in Arad, said it was a “miracle” that no one was killed but added “we don’t want to rely on miracles.”
“If you’re in a shelter, you’re protected,” he said.
Defense Minister Israel Katz, who was also in Arad, accused Iran of intentionally targeting civilians.
“If this continues, we’ll make sure to hit Iran so hard it will be sent back decades,” Katz said.
Tehran aimed to generate domestic pressure on Israel’s government to stop the war, he said, but added that “it won’t happen because our home front is strong.”
In a statement posted on X, IAEA Director-General Rafael Grossi stressed that “maximum military restraint should be observed, in particular in the vicinity of nuclear facilities.”
Since the Feb. 28 US-Israeli strikes on Iran, Tehran has launched more than 400 missiles toward Israel, with the Israeli Air Force saying roughly 92 percent were intercepted. More than 4,500 Israelis have been evacuated to hospitals from the strikes, the health ministry said.
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Scores Hurt After Iranian Missiles Hit Israeli Desert Towns
A drone view shows a damage in a residential neighbourhood, following a night of Iranian missile strikes which injured dozens of Israelis, amid the U.S.-Israel conflict with Iran, in Dimona, southern Israel March 22, 2026. Photo: REUTERS/Roei Kastro
Southern Israeli towns woke to widespread damage on Sunday after air defenses failed to intercept two Iranian missiles overnight that injured scores of civilians in one of the worst attacks of the war so far on Israeli soil.
As daylight broke, the scale of the damage in the desert town of Arad, where one of the strikes hit a multi-story apartment bloc, came into clearer view, with entire floors blown open by the blast.
Uri Shacham, the chief of staff of Israel’s ambulance service, said at least eight buildings were damaged by the missile, which left a crater not far from the apartment blocks.
Footage verified by Reuters showed flames engulfing the top floor of an apartment building shortly after the strike. Search and rescue teams moved from floor to floor inside the damaged buildings.
Israeli military spokesperson Lieutenant Colonel Nadav Shoshani said both strikes had been carried out with conventional ballistic missiles. He declined to comment when asked about the initial findings of a military investigation into the failure to intercept the missiles.
NETANYAHU SAYS MIRACLE NO ONE KILLED
Most Israelis receive alerts on their mobile phone when launches from Iran are identified. An air raid siren sounds and they then have a few minutes to go to safe rooms or public bomb shelters.
“It is a miracle that no-one was killed,” Israeli Prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu said on Sunday, standing in the crater at the impact site in Arad.
Pointing at the blown out walls of the apartment bloc and then at the enforced undamaged wall leading to a shelter below ground, Netanyahu urged Israelis not to be complacent. No one would have been hurt, he said, had all sought shelter in time.
In Arad, 31 people, including 18 children, were hospitalized, at least 9 of them in serious condition, according to the hospital. Dozens more were lightly injured.
Israel said Iran was targeting civilian population areas. Iran’s Revolutionary Guards said they targeted military and security-related sites in retaliation for Israeli strikes against Iranian sites.
Arad and Dimona, another city that was hit, are located close to Israel’s secretive nuclear reactor and several military bases, including Nevatim Air Base, one of the country’s largest.
In Dimona, 5 people were hospitalized, including a 12-year-old boy in serious condition, the hospital said.
Since joint US-Israeli strikes on Iran on February 28, Israel has come under daily missile fire from Iran. At least 20 civilians have been killed in Israel and the Palestinian territories, including one Israeli killed in an attack by Iran-backed Lebanese group Hezbollah on Sunday.
At least 15 people were hospitalized on Sunday in fresh Iranian attacks, according to emergency services, including a cluster munition that struck in Tel Aviv.
Israeli and US strikes have killed at least 1,300 people in Iran so far, according to the Iranian government. The US-based rights group HRANA, which tracks human rights violations in Iran, has recorded 3,320 people killed, including 1,406 civilians and 1,167 military personnel, with the remainder not yet determined. Reuters could not independently verify the data.