Nazi hunter: We're closer to `Butcher of Mauthausen'

[Judi Lynn]

Source: Miami Herald/Associated Press

Nazi hunter: We're closer to `Butcher of Mauthausen'
Posted on Tue, Jul. 15, 2008
Associated Press

SAN CARLOS DE BARILOCHE, Argentina -- An international Jewish human rights organization is better positioned to find former SS Dr. Aribert Heim following a fact-finding mission in southern Chile and Argentina, the organization's director said Monday.

Efraim Zuroff, who heads the Israel-based Simon Wiesenthal Center, arrived in the region last Wednesday and has been conducting an investigation alongside the center's Latin American representative, Sergio Widder.

~snip~
''What we expected to do -- and so far we have been successful -- is to put in place the tools that will lead to his capture in the next few weeks -- or at the most, months,'' Zuroff said.

~snip~
''A person this age cannot live on his own,'' he said. ``Obviously, people have to help him, they have to guard him, they have to be involved in this operation.''

The center has insisted for years that Heim, who would be 94 if still alive, was in the Puerto Montt area in Chile, where a daughter of his has lived since the 1960s. San Carlos de Bariloche is located in Argentina, about 100 miles to the east of Puerto Montt.




Read more: http://www.miamiherald.com/news/americas/story/605421.html

[Judi Lynn]

1. In case anyone would wonder why they think he should be prosecuted:

Concentration camp doctor Aribert Heim is the most-wanted Nazi war criminal
By Ben Martin
Last Updated: 10:14PM BST 30/04/2008

A doctor accused of murdering hundreds of Jewish prisoners at Mauthausen concentration camp has been named as the world's most-wanted Nazi war criminal.

~snip~
According to the 1950 testimony of Karl Lotter, a non-Jewish political prisoner who worked alongside Heim in the camp hospital, the doctor killed an 18-year-old Jew with a minor foot injury.

Instead of treating the teenager, Heim cut him open, castrated him and removed some of his organs, before removing his head, which was put on display.

"He needed the head because of its perfect teeth," said Mr Lotter in his testimony. "Of all the camp doctors in Mauthausen, Dr Heim was the most horrible."

Witnesses have told investigators that Heim also worked closely with Erich Wasicky, an SS pharmacist, who conducted experiments such as injecting different solutions into the hearts of Jewish prisoners to see which killed them the fastest.

But while Wasicky was tried and sentenced to death by an American military tribunal in 1946, Heim, who was also in American custody, evaded prosecution because his file had apparently been altered to remove records of his presence at Mauthausen. He later fled, leaving a German court to convict him in absentia of more than 100 counts of murder in 1979.

More:
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/1915505/Concentration-camp-doctor-Aribert-Heim-is-the-most-wanted-Nazi-war-criminal.html

[burythehatchet]

2. Did the American Nazi's (Bush family) help this one escape?

[Judi Lynn]

4. Never know, do you? You have invoked "Operation Paperclip:"

DU'ers can spend some very productive time researching this very unpleasant business:

Jail Bush | 03.10.2004 21:36

Abu Ghraib tactics were learned by the CIA from Nazi "experts" used as advisors to South American Dictators

Vice President Rockefeller, Kissinger, and Bush sr ran a major Death squad operation in South America

Some reasons to Boycott Exxon, Chase, Citigroup etc...
With Congress' " Nazi War Crimes Disclosure Act" of 1998, many records of CIA collaboration with Nazis are being opened to the public, though still heavily censored in many cases, by the Interagency Working Group (IWG)(see their website: http://www.archives.gov/iwg ).

PRESCOTT BUSH, Bush jr's grandfather, sold $50 million in bonds for German steel magnate Fritz Thyssen, the top financer of the Nazi party. In 1942 the Union Bank, in which Prescott Bush was a director, was closed by the US government under the "Trading with the Enemies Act". $30 million in Nazi bank accounts were confiscated. J.D. ROCKEFELLER II and his sons controlled the following corporations known to have served and supplied the Nazi war effort: STANDARD OIL (todays EXXON), which supplied much of the Nazi's gasoline from South American refineries, and was in a tight business partnership with the German company IG FARBEN. FARBEN built Auschwitz concentration camp as a slave labor camp, where 4 million Jews were killed. Rockefellers' lawyer John McCloy, who was deputy-secretary of Defense, twice blocked a plan to bomb the railroad bridges and gas chambers of Auschwitz. (The Crime and Punishment of IG FARBEN, by Joseph Borkin, Barnes and Noble, details the "business marriage" of STANDARD OIL and FARBEN, including the transfer of 2000 patents to the German war machine). Rockefellers' CHASE MANHATTAN bank served Nazi accounts in Paris, forclosed Jewish accounts, and after the war was involved in transferring the Reichsbank to Swiss and South American accounts. Rockefellers' ITT built important communications systems for the Nazis, and his IBM Corp. built ID machines for the holocaust (source: IBM and the Holocaust, Edwin Black, Crown Press). In 1952 John McCloy released the Nazi industrialists and gave them back their factories. IG FARBEN was divided into Bayer, Hoechst, and BASF, today among the largest pharmaceutical companies in the world.-

1947: CIA FOUNDED AS HANDLING AGENCY FOR NAZIS ABSORBED INTO U.S. MILITARY INDUSTRIAL COMPLEX: In 1947, Rockefellers' lawyer/spy Allen Dulles brought 2000 Nazi scientists into the US (OPERATION PAPERCLIP), to run NASA's rocket program and chemical/ biological weapons programs. In West Germany, Dulles hired Hitlers' master spy Reinhart Gehlen to revive the SS spy agency as the Gehlen Org., which became West Germanys' spy agency BND. Dulles gave Gehlen $200 million in US taxdollars over 10 years to rehire thousands of Nazi SS and GESTAPO veterans, allowing the Nazis to organise underground networks called ODESSA and DIE SPINNE (the spider). These networks created The RATLINE, an escape route to Argentina for thousands of Nazi war criminals sought by Israel, Russia, France etc.. These included notorious Nazis like Adolph Eichmann, Joseph Mengele, Otto Skorzeny, Walther Rauff and Klaus Barbie, who worked for the CIA-BND as advisers to the dictators of Argentina, Brazil, Chile, Paraguay and Bolivia, running torture centers, death squads and cocaine rings. IN 1947 HENRY KISSINGER SERVED AS GERMAN TRANSLATOR IN ARMY INTELLIGENCE, to help Dulles set up these secret networks. He personally "interrogated" many of the top Nazi prisoners held by the US Army, who were absorbed into the CIA-BND. (see: The CIAs worst kept secret, by M. Lee, under Archived article "Nazi echo" at http://www.consortiumnews.com ) In 1952 Dulles ordered SS comando Skorzeny to bring 200 Nazis to Egypt as military advisors to Abdul Nasser in his war with Israel (see: Postwar Arab links to the ODESSA network, at http://www.fantompowa.net/Flame/nazis_postwar_egypt.htm ).

More:
http://sandiego.indymedia.org/en/2004/10/105976.shtml

[flashsmith]

15. Should go after american nazi's too

We're infested with them. http://www.spiritone.com/~gdy52150/noon.html Site has stupid navigation interface, but otherwise very informative. Names Names.

[closeupready]

10. Scumbag.

:mad:

[JoFerret]

26. Go get him. And let the current war criminals

know that there is no escape from justice.

[MadMaddie]

46. That is why it is important for the hunt for the murderous Nazi's

continue...They found one of them here in Seattle..I want the * administration to look at over their shoulders for the rest of their lives.....wondering when the law will come knocking on their door.

http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/nationworld/2008053926_warcrime16m0.html

<snip>
A complaint filed in U.S. District Court in Seattle alleges that Egner was not a conscript, but instead served as a guard and interpreter with the notorious Nazi-run Security Police and Security Service (SPSS) in Belgrade, Serbia (then Yugoslavia) from 1941 through the fall of 1943, when he was wounded. During that time, the complaint stated, his unit participated in the roundup and systematic killings of tens of thousands of Serbian Jews, Gypsies and political dissidents.
<snip>


Another related article..
http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/localnews/2008056248_warcrime17m.html

[wtmusic]

3. A visit to Mauthausen

in Northern Austria will convince anyone that this monster needs to be apprehended.

Mauthausen is now a museum, and it is unforgettable.

[Judi Lynn]

5. Oh, my gosh. I found a page of images of the place after seeing your post. Horrendous.

http://images.google.com/images?sourceid=navclient&ie=UTF-8&rls=GGLD,GGLD:2004-37,GGLD:en&q=Mauthausen

How can this ever be explained?

http://images.google.com/imgres?imgurl=&imgrefurl=http://www.zchor.org/mauthausen/mauthausen.htm&h=687&w=1042&sz=140&hl=en&start=16&tbnid=LlbbOrVgkQ3QAM:&tbnh=99&tbnw=150&prev=/images%3Fq%3DMauthausen%26hl%3Den%26safe%3Dactive%26rls%3DGGLD,GGLD:2004-37,GGLD:en

[Windy]

6. I went to Dachau recently. The horror will never leave me. n/t

[Judi Lynn]

7. Life altering, wasn't it? Unbearable to realize it has happened. n/t

[paparush]

8. We visited Dachau on our honeymoon back in '93. I'll never forget being there.

[MannyGoldstein]

18. Dachau - Right On The Munich Subway Line

It blew my mind that the camp was across from the subway stop from Munich, a few blocks from the center of the upscale village of Dachau. The German volk absolutely knew what was happening. And if it could happen there, it could happen here.

[sui generis]

23. the munich subway line is post war

don't bend the truth.

The fact of the matter is that Dachau did have an attempted uprising with the help of the town of Dachau, an uprising that ended horribly.

Just as there are holocaust deniers there are uprising deniers; there are people who rather than believe that humans couldn't possibly be so evil would as likely believe that people couldn't possibly be anything but evil.

Let's take roll call: how many of you know a holocaust survivor? a Dachau survivor? My grandfather survived Dachau - twice. My gay 14 year old uncle is still at Dachau in a relatively well known photo hanging in the museum. He did not survive the medical experiments conducted on him.

Other little known facts about the war: Germany did not have food. To get food you had to be a party member, attend rallies, send your kids to youthcamp, and have every able bodied male serving in the military. Then you got ration cards, so you could get eggs and milk and butter.

Another uncle starved to death at four when my granfather was sent to Dachau and there were no more ration cards to be had, and no more food either.

The people of Dachau were civilians, and they were starving civilians. What would America have expected anyone who "knew" to do? Hmmm?

It's a human tragedy, made more by the fact of the cost to humanity all the way around, and diminished by our myopic judgement of the woulda shoulda couldas. We weren't there. Maybe we should focus on here.

[MannyGoldstein]

29. You Make Good Points, Thank You

I was not aware that the subway was post-war; however, the point still remains that Dachau (and many other camps) were right near cities and villages. A quick look at the Internet shows that the people of Dachau acknowledged the camp and were sympathetic, even somewhat helpful. However, this was not the case at many or most other camps.

To me, the bottom line is this: in the early part of the 20th century, Germany was possibly the most liberal and tolerant country in the world. They were the only major western European country that would accept Jews from eastern Europe, and Jews were far more German than they were Jewish. In a matter of years, with the full knowledge and (pretty much) full consent of their citizenry, liberal Germany turned into the hell of the Third Reich. If it could happen there, it could happen here.

[Igel]

32. There was an professor emerita at UCLA whose husband

survived a camp. They'd invite me over from time to time when I was a grad student; I'd helped set up her Mac and train her in using it.

He'd get mad at deniers when talking about his experiences, bare his forearm and shake it, as though they were in the room and he was challenging them. Otherwise, he was a nice guy.

His wife, the emerita, wasn't a survivor. She lived through the Nazi period in Central Europe, but managed to avoid the camps. Blonde, blue-eyed, it helped. On the other hand, her family was reduced to an aunt. Her uncles, aunts, parents, cousins, grandparents ... they didn't make it.

She had her own horror stories.

Both were Polish, and while they tell stories about Poles and Germans that hated Jews, they also tell of Polish and German friends that protected Jews.

[tidy_bowl]

44. Horrible. nt

[Windy]

25. that's why the US soldiers brought in the townspeople and had them witness the horror that was

happening in their own backyard. Speaking of backyards, was anyone shocked to see the condos directly behind the camp and the administration building. The condos were several stories high and the residents could see into the camp from their balconies.

Also, there is a Carmelite convent attached to the camp. I believe that the nuns help to maintain the grounds.

As awful and horrible as it was, I believe that everyone should see one of the camps or at minimum the museum in Washington. The only way to prevent history from repeating itself is to combat ignorance.

[np33]

21. I was there

last summer because I've always been very horrified and fascinated by World War 2 history particularly the Holocaust. I've been to the museum in Washington which in itself was a difficult experience but when entering Dachau this heaviness falls over when you realize that you are standing in place where so many horrors and savagery has taken place.



Btw

A little off topic but does anyone here really believe that Hitler killed himself in that bunker?

[MadMaddie]

48. I say I believe it because when the Bully's finally get cornered

they take their own lives versus facing their crimes. That's what they do.

[XemaSab]

11. Thanks for posting these

The second link is a narrative, and it's really astonishing, even after all this time, to read about the camps. :(

[wtmusic]

16. After winding your way up a hill in the beautiful Austrian countryside

you round a corner and there it is: barbed wire and weeds overtaking crumbling concrete, "Arbeit Macht Frei", the whole bit.

You can actually enter the gas chambers, which are now burning with candles in memory of the deceased.

It was after visiting Mauthausen when I fully understood that there is no limit to the depths of human depravity.

[VermeerLives]

47. Yes, and the Austrians would like you to forget it exists.

I spent three years in Austria. They don't like to talk about it...or the fact that Hitler was actually Austrian.

[wuushew]

9. I believe all criminals over 90 should get clemency

While the law is about justice, it is also about public safety. I have never been terribly scared of geriatrics. Hell my grandmother who is 95 can't even lift 5 lbs.

Putting old men in prison may actually make their final years longer and more comfortable. So how has the public good been advanced? :shrug:

[XemaSab]

12. I think they should all pay the price for what they did

To die in a comfortable hospice bed surrounded by your loved ones... or die in a prison away from people who care about you? Which is more suitable for this man?

[truebrit71]

13. Not for this bastard.

...he gets to die cold and alone...

[geomon666]

17. He wouldn't be in prison for long.

I imagine he would share the same fate as some of his comrades.

[MannyGoldstein]

19. A Message To All Monsters That They Will Never, Ever Be Safe

I hate our penal system, and I'm against the death penalty. But these monsters should know that there is a price to be paid - perhaps it can serve as a reminder to those who might follow in their terrible footsteps.

[David Zephyr]

37. Track these fuckers down for the rest of their lives.

Monsters regardless of how old they are. Monsters!

[TonyClifton]

24. Your opinion is rediculous

The law is also for punishment and not punishing someone because your gramdma can't lift 5 pounds, well, that is stupid.

[Xithras]

28. According to the liberal ideal, you are wrong.

Justice is not about vengeance, but about reforming the offender and protecting society from further predation. The idea that the law is a tool for revenge, or that it's to make people suffer, is a very conservative one, and a position that liberals have been slowly eradicating for the past century. Once you go down that road, all sorts of horrible things can be justified...like that "eye for an eye" bullshit.

What the guy did was horrible beyond comprehension, but I happen to agree with the OP. Once a criminal reaches the point where they can physically no longer wipe their own arses, the concept of imprisonment becomes a joke. What's the difference if a 95year old man spends his closing months doodling around the halls of a convalescent hospital, or if he spends his closing months doodling around the halls of a prison hospital? At 95, even if he could be imprisoned before he keeled over, he'd never see the inside of an actual cell, and he's still going to die with his family by his side and doctors & nurses making him comfortable.

The OP's point is that imprisonment at that age is kind of...well, pointless. I happen to agree.

[Behind the Aegis]

30. Stawman.

The other poster never mentioned "vengeance." He said "punishment," and that is, in fact, one of the ideas behind justice.

Justice as natural law
Main article: Natural law
John Locke of the natural law believes that justice would become a natural law, it involves the system of punishments which are prone from choices. In this, it is similar to the laws of physics: in the same way as the Third of Newton's laws of Motion requires that for every action there must be an equal and opposite reaction, justice requires according individuals or groups what they actually deserve, merit, or are entitled to. Justice, on this account, is a universal and absolute concept: laws, principles, religions, etc., are merely attempts to codify that concept, sometimes with results that entirely contradict the true nature of justice.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Justice#Justice_as_natural_law

Whereas I agree what he did his horrible, almost to the point of beyond comprehension, it does matter whether he is tried and serves time in jail, if found responsible. Imprisonment becomes a joke when actual criminals are not imprisoned because of something like age. Imprisonment becomes a joke when someone who had a pound of pot gets 15 years and a rapist gets 2 years.

[treestar]

34. I agree; at this point, it is a waste of time

They're all either dead or too close to dying to make it worth going after them to punish them; let alone the problems of proof after this number of years.

[Behind the Aegis]

35. Out of curiosity....

...would you feel the same were this Cheney, Bush, or someone who murdered (G-d forbid) a member of your family?

[Xithras]

38. Hypothetically? Yes.

Let's say, for example, that Cheney set his shock corps loose tomorrow and they killed half my family before being deposed. Of course I would want him punished, and of course I'd want him to spend the rest of his life in jail. But what if he evaded capture until he was a 103 year old Depends-wearing invalid who could barely remember his families name? Would I still hate him? Absolutely. Would I want to waste time with a trial and imprisonment? Not really. It wouldn't accomplish anything...the monster responsible for the crimes is already history at that point, and all that's left is a pathetic, mindless bag of flesh just waiting for a vital organ to fail. Prison isn't really a punishment at that point, because imprisonment would simply mean swapping one sterile gray hospital room for another. Infirm geriatrics don't get placed in cells.

[AlienGirl]

39. Justice is about more than punishing the guilty

There is also an element of the making-public of the crime, and the message sent that society will not countenance the criminal's behavior. To let this man go untried is to send the message that his behavior is excusable. Is that a message you would be comfortable with sending?

Tucker

[Xithras]

40. I have never supported trying people "to send a message"

Much like the "eye for an eye" stuff, you get onto dangerous ground when you start trying and convicting people to prove a point, rather than to protect society. That kind of mentality has led to grossly unjust punishments throughout the history of trials. I remember when the first gang moved into my hometown when I was a kid, and some 20 year old Mexican guy took a potshot at another guy who "disrespected" him. He fired one shot, missed, and plead guilty. The judge sentenced him to 50 years, at that time the maximum penalty for that particular class of attempted murder, to "send a message" that gang activity wasn't welcome here. I've seen actual murderers get less time than that. (It took awhile, but the guy later got it reduced to something like 5 years on appeal).

Courtrooms are not the place to send messages to society. They are places to try the accused, and to imprison the guilty as neccesary to protect society from predation (and if lucky, possibly reform the criminal at the same time).

[LeftishBrit]

36. There are some crimes that don't have statutes of limitations...

and there's a reason for it.

I do think that everyone should have a fair trial; and if someone has dementia and can't comprehend what's happening at the trial, then it's too late to have it. Otherwise, there should not be a limitation for crimes like this. A burglary or drugs offence is different.

But even after the perpetrators are dead, shouldn't one investigate the crimes and their effects, just so that the victims and the whole world KNOW what was done?

[Psephos]

41. Good points, and I agree with most of them...but not with the idea that libs disdain revenge

Libs have instead shifted the notion of revenge away from traditional offenders (criminals, e.g.) and more towards political opponents. That impulse seems to be growing stronger. I wonder if new communications technologies (especially the Internet) are an impetus.

The problem with any dogmatic system (and that includes leftist ideology as much as what the wingnuts practice) is that the drive to vilify and punish those who don't subscribe to one's particular dogma eventually proves irresistible. To put it another way, dogma corrupts our capacity for tolerance and replaces it with hatred.

[ninety lives]

42. Justice is also about holding the guilty accountable

If the guilty are not held accountable, governments are viewed as weak by their enemies.

Those around the world who would commit hate crimes or war crimes would take encouragement from the fact that these monsters are not held responsible.

[Nye Bevan]

43. An 18-year-old Jewish youth came to the clinic with a foot inflammation

He was asked by Heim why it was that he was so fit. He replied that he had been a soccer player and swimmer. Instead of treating the prisoner's foot, Heim placed him under anesthesia, cut him open, took apart one kidney, removed the second and castrated him. The boy was decapitated and Heim boiled the flesh off the skull so it could be displayed, the former inmate said.

...

Jewish inmates were poisoned with various injections directly into the heart - including gasoline, water and poison.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aribert_Heim

Clemency? I don't think so.

[OwnedByFerrets]

14. We are close to the "butcher" of Iraq too....

why dont we lock him up before he gets away?

[Barrett808]

20. At first, I read this as "we -- the U.S. --" are closer to being Nazis

Which, thanks to Darth Cheney, is the case.

[sui generis]

22. I am conflicted on a particular point

and it is, are they going to go after the daughter and the other people this article is loosely qualifying as criminal?

Granted, Heim should stand trial at any age. My grandfather was briefly in Mauthausen before being transferred back to Dachau.

but I also know from my Opa that it is always easier for someone else to judge the rest of the family for aiding and abetting a criminal than to say honestly what they would do themselves in the same position.

My aristo Oma was punished for her husband being jewish. for aiding and abetting an enemy of the state. Granted, he never murdered anyone, but then again they did not send my grandmother to a concentration for the crime of her husband being jewish.

I don't think they should punish the children for the crimes of their father.

I suppose I'm not conflicted after all.

[Jefferson23]

27. Just looking at that mans picture makes my skin crawl.

[paparush]

31. When they wrap that up, maybe they can look into The Butcher of Crawford

Congress has taken a pass.

[superconnected]

45. I'm pretty sure in 60years bush will be dead - which is the rate they're going for the

german butcher... gee and they've nearly caught him.

Those pacts with the devil must be something for the truly evil to live so long.

[RFKHumphreyObama]

33. I really hope they find this monster

And he spends the last days of his life behind bars. It is a travesty that he has enjoyed a peaceful life until now -something this old perverted creep denied to his victims. I have no sympathy or compassion for this barbarian