Yrys
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The hunt for the last Nazis
The race
Efforts to bring war criminals to justice
faltered as the Cold War set in
The US has deported to Austria a former Nazi death camp guard, Josias Kumpf. The move
sheds light on the continuing search - in some countries, at least - for World War II war
criminals. Mario Cacciottolo examines a hunt now entering its final phase. "Looking for Nazi
war criminals is the ultimate law enforcement race against the clock."
Eli Rosenbaum, director of the Office of Special Investigations (OSI) in the United States,
has a list of thousands of suspects. But working out whether any of them are alive and in
the US is a laborious job. A full check could take 100 years at current rates, he says - but
in 10 years "the World War II biological clock will come to an end".
Contrary to popular belief, most former Nazis did not go into hiding after the war. Most did
not even change their name. There were some - such as Adolf Eichmann, who planned the
transport of Jews to death camps, and Dr Joseph Mengele, Auschwitz's "Angel of Death" -
who slipped away amid the post-war chaos and assumed false identities.
But the majority simply took off their uniforms, went home, and got a job. And for a crucial
period in the 1950s, little was done to track them down, experts say.
Justice 'not done'
"More could have been done, but there was a lack of political will. Not from 1945 to 1948,
but after that," says Jean-Marc Dreyfus, lecturer in Holocaust studies at the University of
Manchester. "Around 1953 the Nazi trials stopped, and it's important to note that the Cold
War was the reason why. "The West needed a strong West Germany and did not want to
spend time hunting for Nazis, many of which were now part of the society and even the
Federal Republic government.
"Removing those individuals would have weakened the nation, and for the West it was
more important by then to have a strong West German position against Russia. "There
were doctors, engineers, the army, who were all involved in Nazism and who were left
to carry on after the war ended. The Allies even dealt with the same army generals
that Hitler did."
In the 1950s and 1960s, the German judge and prosecutor Fritz Bauer estimated there
were 100,000 Germans who were responsible in one way or another for mass killings
of Jews. Other estimates suggested as many as 300,000. Bauer also said less than
5,000 people had been prosecuted, which amounts to a "tear drop in the ocean" according
to Dr Dreyfus. "Based on these estimates, justice has not been done."
Turning point
But in the 1970s there was a shift in Holocaust consciousness, a demand from the public
to know more about it.
As the second generation began to question what their parents did in the war, and historians
began to ask questions about governments and their policies toward Jews, so too did interest
in war crimes increase.
"The turning point was around 1976 to 1978, and with this increase in consciousness, it was
then considered that the Nazis should be hunted once again. "Before then, there wasn't the
kind of interest that there is today," Dr Dreyfus says.
Professor David Cesarani, author of Justice Delayed, a book that explains how the UK came
to grant citizenship to numerous Nazi collaborators from Eastern Europe in the post-war years,
says both Britain and the US knowingly recruited war criminals to fight the Cold War. Recently
declassified US documents show US intelligence often hunted Nazi war criminals in order to use
them, rather than to bring them to justice, he says.
"It had far more information than it disclosed to investigators or prosecutors. As a result, key
Nazi personnel involved in genocide and atrocities went free for decades - if they were ever
caught," he told the BBC. He agrees that enthusiasm for Nazi-hunting picked up in the 1970s,
attributing this partly to the trial of Adolf Eichmann in 1960-61 and a renewed interest in the
Holocaust among academics and writers that the trial helped to generate.
Simon Wiesenthal
During the years that Western countries did little to identify former Nazi war criminals in their
midst, however, private investigators fought a tireless battle. Simon Wiesenthal, who founded
the Jewish Historical Documentation Centre in Austria in 1947, and contributed to the capture
of Eichmann, also helped track down Franz Murer "the Butcher of Vilnius"; Erich Rajakowitsch,
responsible for transporting Dutch Jews to the death camps; Franz Stangl, the commandant of
the Treblinka and Sobibor death camps; Karl Silberbauer, the gestapo officer who arrested
Anne Frank, and many others.
A generation younger, Serge and Beate Klarsfeld pursued Nazis and collaborators who had
played leading roles in occupied France. They also carried out daring stunts to open West G
erman eyes to the war criminals living in respectable society, and sometimes in positions of
power.
A centre named in honour of Simon Wiesenthal continues today to search for surviving Nazis
and monitor the performance of national governments. Its last annual report in April 2008
noted that there were 608 investigations under way across the world, and that 76 convictions
had been achieved in the preceding seven years. It gave the USA an A grade for its efforts to
bring Nazis to trial, an accolade that no other country has achieved. The UK, which received a
C as recently as 2001 - for "minimal success that could have been greater" - had dropped to
the X category, indicating that it "failed to take any action whatsoever to investigate suspected
Nazi war criminals".
'Most wanted'
The work carried out in America by the OSI involves a team of historians examining archives
that contain 70,000 names - including 40,000 "senior core SS officers" - and then matching
them against lists of US residents. Once a match is found, an investigation can begin. The
result, if a war criminal is successfully prosecuted, is denaturalisation and deportation or
extradition.
NAZI WAR CRIMINAL CONVICTIONS 2001-2008
United States: 37
Italy: 26
Canada: 6
Germany: 3
Lithuania: 2
Poland: 1
France: 1
Source: Simon Wiesenthal Center (figures include
denaturalisations, deportations and extraditions)
The race
Efforts to bring war criminals to justice
faltered as the Cold War set in
The US has deported to Austria a former Nazi death camp guard, Josias Kumpf. The move
sheds light on the continuing search - in some countries, at least - for World War II war
criminals. Mario Cacciottolo examines a hunt now entering its final phase. "Looking for Nazi
war criminals is the ultimate law enforcement race against the clock."
Eli Rosenbaum, director of the Office of Special Investigations (OSI) in the United States,
has a list of thousands of suspects. But working out whether any of them are alive and in
the US is a laborious job. A full check could take 100 years at current rates, he says - but
in 10 years "the World War II biological clock will come to an end".
Contrary to popular belief, most former Nazis did not go into hiding after the war. Most did
not even change their name. There were some - such as Adolf Eichmann, who planned the
transport of Jews to death camps, and Dr Joseph Mengele, Auschwitz's "Angel of Death" -
who slipped away amid the post-war chaos and assumed false identities.
But the majority simply took off their uniforms, went home, and got a job. And for a crucial
period in the 1950s, little was done to track them down, experts say.
Justice 'not done'
"More could have been done, but there was a lack of political will. Not from 1945 to 1948,
but after that," says Jean-Marc Dreyfus, lecturer in Holocaust studies at the University of
Manchester. "Around 1953 the Nazi trials stopped, and it's important to note that the Cold
War was the reason why. "The West needed a strong West Germany and did not want to
spend time hunting for Nazis, many of which were now part of the society and even the
Federal Republic government.
"Removing those individuals would have weakened the nation, and for the West it was
more important by then to have a strong West German position against Russia. "There
were doctors, engineers, the army, who were all involved in Nazism and who were left
to carry on after the war ended. The Allies even dealt with the same army generals
that Hitler did."
In the 1950s and 1960s, the German judge and prosecutor Fritz Bauer estimated there
were 100,000 Germans who were responsible in one way or another for mass killings
of Jews. Other estimates suggested as many as 300,000. Bauer also said less than
5,000 people had been prosecuted, which amounts to a "tear drop in the ocean" according
to Dr Dreyfus. "Based on these estimates, justice has not been done."
Turning point
But in the 1970s there was a shift in Holocaust consciousness, a demand from the public
to know more about it.
As the second generation began to question what their parents did in the war, and historians
began to ask questions about governments and their policies toward Jews, so too did interest
in war crimes increase.
"The turning point was around 1976 to 1978, and with this increase in consciousness, it was
then considered that the Nazis should be hunted once again. "Before then, there wasn't the
kind of interest that there is today," Dr Dreyfus says.
Professor David Cesarani, author of Justice Delayed, a book that explains how the UK came
to grant citizenship to numerous Nazi collaborators from Eastern Europe in the post-war years,
says both Britain and the US knowingly recruited war criminals to fight the Cold War. Recently
declassified US documents show US intelligence often hunted Nazi war criminals in order to use
them, rather than to bring them to justice, he says.
"It had far more information than it disclosed to investigators or prosecutors. As a result, key
Nazi personnel involved in genocide and atrocities went free for decades - if they were ever
caught," he told the BBC. He agrees that enthusiasm for Nazi-hunting picked up in the 1970s,
attributing this partly to the trial of Adolf Eichmann in 1960-61 and a renewed interest in the
Holocaust among academics and writers that the trial helped to generate.
Simon Wiesenthal
During the years that Western countries did little to identify former Nazi war criminals in their
midst, however, private investigators fought a tireless battle. Simon Wiesenthal, who founded
the Jewish Historical Documentation Centre in Austria in 1947, and contributed to the capture
of Eichmann, also helped track down Franz Murer "the Butcher of Vilnius"; Erich Rajakowitsch,
responsible for transporting Dutch Jews to the death camps; Franz Stangl, the commandant of
the Treblinka and Sobibor death camps; Karl Silberbauer, the gestapo officer who arrested
Anne Frank, and many others.
A generation younger, Serge and Beate Klarsfeld pursued Nazis and collaborators who had
played leading roles in occupied France. They also carried out daring stunts to open West G
erman eyes to the war criminals living in respectable society, and sometimes in positions of
power.
A centre named in honour of Simon Wiesenthal continues today to search for surviving Nazis
and monitor the performance of national governments. Its last annual report in April 2008
noted that there were 608 investigations under way across the world, and that 76 convictions
had been achieved in the preceding seven years. It gave the USA an A grade for its efforts to
bring Nazis to trial, an accolade that no other country has achieved. The UK, which received a
C as recently as 2001 - for "minimal success that could have been greater" - had dropped to
the X category, indicating that it "failed to take any action whatsoever to investigate suspected
Nazi war criminals".
'Most wanted'
The work carried out in America by the OSI involves a team of historians examining archives
that contain 70,000 names - including 40,000 "senior core SS officers" - and then matching
them against lists of US residents. Once a match is found, an investigation can begin. The
result, if a war criminal is successfully prosecuted, is denaturalisation and deportation or
extradition.
NAZI WAR CRIMINAL CONVICTIONS 2001-2008
United States: 37
Italy: 26
Canada: 6
Germany: 3
Lithuania: 2
Poland: 1
France: 1
Source: Simon Wiesenthal Center (figures include
denaturalisations, deportations and extraditions)
