author of THE HUNT FOR GERMAN SCIENTISTS

The drama of the

daring Jeuis uiho
are auenging the
sia million dead
 $ 5.95

by MICHAEL BAR-ZOHAR

Just afterWorld War II, a group of

European Jews formed the Israeli
Brigade, and set out to avenge their
people by tracking down and killing

Nazis.

While the Israeli Brigade itself no

longer exists, vengeance continues to
this day in the form of individuals
dedicated to seeing that those Nazis
who still live do so in terror of capture

and execution.
For the first time, the Avengers have
told their stories — for example, how
they infiltrated an Allied prison camp
after the war, and poisoned the bread
of the Nazi captives.

Michael Bar-Zohar, in tracking

down the stories in this book, traveled
to fifteen countries, had access to
public and private documents, and in-
terviewed the people involved —gov-
ernment agents, writers, judges, prose-
cutors, and the Avengers themselves,
who previously would speak to no one.

With this information, Bar-Zohar is

able to reveal what actually happened

( continued on back flap)
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 *

THE
nUEHGERS
Other Books by Michael Bar-Zohar
THE HUNT FOR GERMAN SCIENTISTS
BEN-GURION
 MICHAEL BAR-ZOHAR
Translated from the French by Len Ortzen

HAWTHORN BOOKS, INC Publishers

New York
 THE AVENGERS

Copyright © 1967 by Librairie Artheme Fayard. Copyright under

International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. All rights
reserved, including the right to reproduce this book, or portions
thereof, in any form, except for the inclusion of brief quotations
in a review. All inquiries should be addressed to Hawthorn Books,
Inc., 70 Fifth Avenue, New York City 1001 1. This book was manu-
factured in the United States of America and published simultaneously
in Canada by Prentice-Hall of Canada, Ltd., 1870 Birchmount Road,
Scarborough, Ontario. Library of Congress Catalogue Card Number:
68-30716.

First Edition: 1967

Design: Gene Gordon

Wherever the murderer may hide away,
There shall we be, night and day,
Our eyes will be fixed on him
As the sunflower follows the sun.

In his innermost rooms are we,

As the shadow that clings to his steps,
We are in the poison dormant
In the slender, hollow needle.

Nathan Alterman
 s

Digitized by the Internet Archive

in 2017 with funding from
Kahle/Austin Foundation

https://archive.org/details/avengersOObarz
 «

CONTENTS

Foreword 3

Part One The Early Avengers 9

1 The First Vengeance 11
2 Die Juden Kommen! 20
3 The “German Battalion” 32
4 The Poisoned Bread 40
5 The Death of “Eichmann” 53
6 The Black Book 63
7 The Last of the Avengers 79
8 Israel Is Our Revenge 85

Part Two In Flight 89

9 The Impregnable Fortress 91
10 The Rats Leave the Sinking Ship 103
1 1 The Lock Gates 1
1

12 The Spider, Odessa, and Monastery Routes 120

13 Bormann’s Treasure 132
14 In Pursuit of Martin Bormann 139
15 Islam to the Aid of the Reich 143
16 The Spanish Sanctuary 150
17 The Nazi Who Turned Jew 156

Part Three The Flunt for Nazi Criminals 159

18 The Man Who
Captured Eichmann 161

19 —
Three True Hunters Simon Wisenthal, Tuviah 178
Friedman and Hermann Langbein
20 The Degrelle Fiasco 191
21 The Z entralstelle 199
22 Doctors of Death 206
23 Josef Mengele 219
Vlll CONTENTS

24 Where Is Martin Bormann? 2 33

>>

25 The End of Cukurs 2

43
26 Vengeance, A Warning 2 54

Author’s Note 2 59
Source Material 261
Bibliography 26 5
Index 267
 «

FOREWORD

Millions of men
celebrated the defeat of Nazi Germany and were
thankful for peace. But for others, May 8, 1945, did not mean the
end of the war. There were not very many of them they had —
been in the Resistance or had been deported or were in army
—
uniform but they set out, sometimes alone, to hunt down the
criminals who had murdered their brothers, their families . . .

their race. Their aim was revenge. And they had it. They captured
many Nazi criminals, handed some over to the Allied authorities
or to the police of various countries, and executed others them-
selves.
This book treats events unique in history: the efforts of a few
men to avenge crimes of unparalleled diversity and magnitude.
It deals with the vengeance of the Jews.
For years, most of the avengers kept their stories secret; now
they have revealed them to me. They have told of events which
even their relatives and closest friends knew nothing of, and they
said, looking me straight in the eye, “Yes, I killed, and I’ll tell

you why.”
This book may seem to provide evidence for ex-Nazis and
neo-Nazis and for anti-Semites of all kinds. They will see in it

proof that Jews killed men without trial, brutally and hurriedly.
The avengers’ reply is that they were acting name of a
in the
Justice which transcends ordinary law. They would add that
their actions show Jews capable of hitting back. From this point
of view, the Jewish vengeance is a direct warning to all those
who look back with longing to Nazi Germany and who might
imitate the oppressors of the past. Since force is, unfortunately,
the only argument that such men understand, they will know that
Jews, too, can return blow for blow.
3
4 THE AVENGERS

During the two thousand years of the Diaspora, the Jews were
looked upon as a meek people, a people who hated violence. They
were a subjugated race, people who could be oppresssed and
reviled because no one believed them capable of revolting. The
deeds of epic heroism performed by Jews during World War II
destroyed that myth. And so did the avengers. They were, and
are, fighting Jews who will not accept abuse or injustice.

In gathering the material for this book, more than fif-

I visited
—
teen countries Israel, all the countries of Europe and Latin Amer-
ica, and the United States. I talked with more than a hundred

people concerned with the activities described here —avengers,

secret agents, Nazi hunters, writers and journalists, judges and
public prosecutors. In addition to published works, I have been
allowed to consult relevant unpublished documents and been given
access to private and secret archives. I was given great assistance
by the Yad Vashem Wiener Library in
Institute in Israel, the
London, and several documentation centers in Europe and South
America. I do not claim to have revealed the whole story of
Jewish vengeance and the hunt for Nazi criminals. The subject
is too vast and too secret for one man to succeed in bringing

all of it to light.
The first part of the book
with Jewish vengeance; the
deals
second part with the flight of Nazi criminals and with Nazi
escape organizations and underground activities; and the third
describes the hunt for Nazi criminals, which was pursued with
fresh vigor after the capture of Eichmann.
Some of these facts of revenge and plans for reprisals may
seem shocking. I ask the reader to try to remember or imagine
what the Nazi hell must have been like, and to try to understand
the anguish and fury of those who survived.
I offer below a brief summary of “The Final Solution of the

Jewish Question,” and ask that The Avengers be understood in

this context.

First Stage: New policy directed against the Jews.

January 30, 1933. Nazi Party comes to power in Germany, be-
gins to spread hatred of the Jews.
Foreword 5

April i, Day of boycotting the Jews.

1933.
September 1935. The Nuremberg Laws deprive the Jews of
their civil rights.
October 28, 1938. Expulsion of the 17,000 Polish Jews living
in Germany.*
November 9, 1938. The “Night of the Broken Glass.”
— 91 synagogues and Jewish homes burned to the ground.
1 17 1

— 7,500 shops looted.

—Several dozen Jews or injured.
killed
— 20,000 Jews arrested; half the number sent to Buchenwald.
—German Jews pay collective a of marks.
fine 1 billion

—Jewish factories and shops confiscated.

—Jewish children expelled from schools.
September t, 1939. At the outbreak of World War II there
were 375,000 Jews in the territory of the Third Reich (Germany,
Austria, Czechoslovakia).
Second Stage: The Reich seeks a solution to the Jewish question.
September-October 1939. Poland overrun and divided between
Germany and the USSR. In the German-held territory there
were 2,700,000 Jews.
September 21, 1939. Heydrich sends secret orders to his chief
assistants —
the Jewish population is to be concentrated, in view
of the “Final Solution.”
October 30, 1939. Heydrich issues orders that all Jews in Reich
territory are to be transferred to Poland, to the areas under
“general government.”
March 1940. This scheme halted because of transport diffi-

culties.

Summer 1940. All Jews have to wear a yellow star. Ghettos

created in Polish towns. The leaders of the Reich discuss the
“Madagascar Plan,” a scheme to deport all European Jews to the
French island in the Indian Ocean. But the plan was abandoned.
October 18, 1940. The Warsaw ghetto is sealed off, with
400,000 Jews inside.
The aim during this second stage was the extermination of the
Jews through hunger, disease, oppressive measures, and the low-
ering of their morale. Mass executions had begun.
 ,

6 THE AVENGERS

Third Stage: The Final Solution.

June 1941. German armies invade Russia.
Army accompanied by Einsatzgruppen whose task is
units are
the extermination of Jews, Communists, and Red Army com-
missars, and which are composed of SS and police, also a certain
number of Ukrainians, Lithuanians, and Letts.
Hundreds of thousands of Jews are killed, most of them
massacred by machine-gun squads in the forests. A report dated
January 1942 gives the figure of 229,052 Jews exterminated in
the Baltic States. Before the war ended, the number of Jews
thus massacred reached a total of between 1 million and 1,400,000.
July 31, 1941. Goering writes to Heydrich instructing him to
“make all the preparations necessary for a complete solution of
the Jewish question in German-controlled countries in Europe.”
Shortly afterwards, Himmler summons Rudolf Hess (later com-
mandant of Auschwitz) to Berlin and informs him that the Fuehrer
has given orders for “the solution of the Jewish problem for all
time.” The decision is taken to build Auschwitz concentration
camp.
September 1941. First attempts at mass extermination of Jews
meet with complete success. Principal camps with gas chambers:
Chelmno, Belzec, Sobibor, Treblinka, Maidanek, Auschwitz.
January 20, 1942. The Wannsee Conference, presided over by
Heydrich, definitely adopts the Final Solution, which was to be
applied to 1 1 million Jews.
Summer 1942. More than 300,000 Jews from the Warsaw ghetto
deported and exterminated. Seventy per cent of Polish Jews
exterminated by the end of the year.
1942-1945. The Final Solution extended to the whole of oc-
cupied Europe.
 *
Foreword 7

Number of localities “purged” of their Jewish population.

Austria 769 Lithuania 2 95

Czechoslovakia 4,500 Luxembourg 1

Estonia 50 Norway ^ 28
Germany 3.383 Poland 16,782
Greece 48 Romania 3. OI 3
Holland 395 USSR 1,086
Hungary 2,462 Yugoslavia 678
Latvia 41 3 T otal: 33 . 9 H
Number of Jews exterminated by the Nazis.

Austria 53,000
Belgium 57,000
Bulgaria (pre-1941 frontiers) 5,000
Czechoslovakia (1937 frontiers) 255,000
Denmark I , 5 °°
France 1 40,000
Germany (1937 frontiers) 195,000
Greece 64,000
Holland 1 20,000
Hungary (1938 frontiers) 200,000
Italy 20,000
Luxembourg 3,000
Norway 1,000
Poland (1939 frontiers) 3,271,000
Romania (pre-1940 frontiers) 530,000
USSR (pre-1939 frontiers and including
Baltic States) 1,050,000
Yugoslavia 64,000
Total 6,029,500
Less displaced persons 308,000
Total number of Jews exterminated 5,721,500
 PART ONE

THE EARLY AVENGERS

 «

THE FIRST VENGEANCE

At the beginning of this centuryDaruvar was a small town in

that part of the vast Austro-Hungarian Empire which later be-
came Yugoslavia. It was a tolerant community where Roman
Catholics, Greek Orthodox, Muslims, and Jews lived peacefully
together. Here, on July 9, 1909, a third son was born to Rabbi
Frankfurter, the head of a devoutly religious family. David, as
the child was named, had and did not go outdoors
delicate health
often with his brothers or join in the boisterous games of chil-
dren his own age. He was very fond of reading, particularly the
Bible and Jewish history. No one could have seen in this shy,
gentle child a future rebel.
But appearances are often deceptive. This little Jewish boy
drew courage and strength from the trials of his childhood. And
when the time came, David Frankfurter carried out an act of
violence whose effects were felt throughout Europe.
In 1929, when he was twenty, David left Daruvar and went to
Germany. His father wanted him to be a dentist, but he decided
to be a doctor like one of his brothers. He studied at Leipzig
University for eighteen months, then continued at Frankfurt.
In Germany it was a time of increasing unemployment, rapid
inflation,and the rise of Nazism. Insults, signs such as Juden
’
raus appeared on the doors of shops kept by Jews. Street fight-
ing often broke out between Nazis and Communists, Socialists, or
Republicans. On
January 30, 1933, Hindenburg appointed Hitler
to be Chancellor of the Reich, and that evening Nazi storm
troopers paraded in all the towns, their brown-shirted columns
marching behind swastika banners. The apathetic, the weak-
kneed, and the doubters rallied to their ranks. The Nazis had
emerged triumphant, masters of Germany.
1
I 2 THE AVENGERS

Once Hitler was in power, the situation of the Jews soon grew
worse. Outbreaks of violence increased, and the last of the Jewish
resistance was broken. Many Jews known for their left-wing
sympathies were arrested, some of David’s friends among them.
They were taken to police stations or to cellars and warehouses
where the storm troopers had established posts. Many were never
seen again. Vague rumours began to circulate about the existence
of concentration camps where Jews and enemies of the regime
were imprisoned.
But even among Jews there were people who refused to believe
in such atrocities. David Frankfurter thought: “I’m not German,
I won’t be arrested.”
The head of the Jewish family he was living with in Frankfurt
still had his revolver from World War I, a heavy, six-cylinder

weapon. David borrowed it, without any definite purpose in

mind. He wanted to be able to defend himself if the need should
arise. He would meet force with force. He decided to find out
for himself what was really happening and to see what the enemy
was like. He went to Nazi meetings and talked with Party mem-
bers, got into heated discussions with them. It was beyond his
comprehension that such things could come to pass in Ger-
many.
“I remember one Friday evening when I was at a meeting held
in the Sports Palace in Frankfurt,” he told me later. “The hall
was overheated and packed with Nazis. They were loudly ap-
plauding the speaker, a man named Hube, who was the Party
leader in Berlin. I was the only Jew in the hall, the only one not
in uniform, not wearing Nazi badges and insignia. I was bewil-
dered and terrified by the hysterical shouts of those savages. I
was looking at a real monster, there on the platform. I felt the
butt of the revolver in my pocket and said to myself, ‘If anyone
lays a hand on me, I’ll shoot him. I’ll fight like Samson against
”
these Philistines, and I’ll die as he did!’
Nothing happened that night at the Sports Palace, but when he
returned home David could not put the frenzied scenes he had
witnessed out of his mind. The shock had gone deep and left him
sick and bewildered. He tried to think clearly about what could
be done to end the horror.
 «
The First Vengeance

A few days later he heard that a big torchlight procession was

to take place in honor of Goering, who was visiting the town.
David had an idea — he would kill Goering, wipe out one of the
chief leaders of the Nazi Party.
“I hurried down to the street. The pavements were thronged
with people waiting to cheer the procession as it passed. I pushed
my way to the front, to the storm troopers lining the curb, and I
asked one of them, ‘Where’s Goering?’ ‘He’s just gone by,’ he
answered. His elbow brushed my chest and I could tell from his
expression that he had felt the revolver under my jacket. I had to
do something at once, so I raised my arm in the Nazi salute and
shouted, ‘Heil Hitler!’ The man was reassured and turned away.
So I missed my first great opportunity by a few seconds.”
David Frankfurter left Germany in July 1933. He still wanted
no wish to continue his studies in a
to be a doctor, but had
country dominated by Nazism. He went to Switzerland, to
Berne.
hoped to find a little peace in Berne,” he told me. “Some
“I
quiet and peace of mind, far from Nazi brutalities and all the
humiliations. I wanted to forget, to forget everything, but I
could not. I thought and thought, but I kept my thoughts to
myself.”
Some time later he returned to Daruvar to spend a few days
with He
had decided not to say anything about the
his parents.

matters which were constantly on his mind, but one evening in

the course of a discussion he could not contain himself any
longer. “I can’t understand why no one has tried to kill this brute
Hitler!” he burst out. “If nobody else does, I will!”
None of the family took him seriously. No
one could imagine
gentle David brandishing a pistol and taking the law into his own
hands. Yet at that moment the young man knew
was his decision
made. The world must be warned, the nature of Nazism must be
revealed. Since no one had done anything, he, David Frankfurter,
would be the first of the Jews to strike a blow.

remember whether it was in 1934 or 1935 that I re-

“I don’t
turned to Germany to see what was happening. In Berlin my
uncle was set upon by a gang of young Nazis, beaten, and thrown
x
4 THE AVENGERS

to the ground; they pulled his beard and shouted insults. I went
back to Switzerland deeply disturbed.' I called on a friend of
mine, a German Jew, and found him cleaning a revolver. ‘Why
have you got that?’ I asked him. ‘Because I may be expelled from
Switzerland and sent back to Germany,’ he answered. ‘But they
won’t get me alive.’ I asked who had given him the revolver. ‘I
bought it,’ he said. ‘Do you want to know where?’
“I made a careful note of the address.”
In 1935 a bitter controversy broke out in the Swiss press over
the activities of a German Nazi, Wilhelm Gustloff, whom Hitler
had appointed Landesgruppenleiter der NSDAP fur Schweiz,
which meant that he had the task of bringing the 300,000 Ger-
mans living in Switzerland within the Nazi Party. Gustloff, who
had a lung infection, established his headquarters at Davos and
soon organized a number of branches of the Nazi Party through-
out the country. Many Swiss journalists and politicians protested
against his activities and demanded to know who had permitted
him to create a Nazi network in Switzerland.
“I found it impossible to remain indifferent,” David said later.
“I liked Switzerland very much; it was a free, independent,
democratic country. I knew how much the Swiss disliked the
Nazis and their persecution of the Jews. When I realized that
Gustloff was setting up an organization aiming to make Switzer-
land fall like a ripe fruit into Hitler’s hands, I was disgusted.
Those brutes weren’t satisfied to besmirch and disgrace Ger-
many, they were bringing their pestilence into Switzerland!”
He decided that Wilhelm Gustloff was the man who had to be
killed.

bought a small revolver that had its magazine in the butt. I

“I
cleaned and loaded it, thinking all the while. Never before had I
been in such a state of turmoil. The deed I had decided on went
against all my moral principles. But my conscience replied: ‘You
can’t do anything else, you have no choice.’
“I also thought that I would die for it; but I was convinced that
my sacrifice would serve a purpose, that it was necessary. It
would open the eyes of all free and just men.
“I put the revolver in my pocket. I left a note for my landlady,
a nice, kind person who liked me. In the note I wrote: ‘I am
 *
The First Vengeance i5

going away. You will soon have news of me.’ I put the note on
the table, next to a Nazi book that I had bought called The
Abominable Jews. I left the book open at the flyleaf, on which I
had written, ‘From one of the abominable.’ Then I took the train
for Davos.”
He arrived in Davos on January 21, 1936. It was a Friday,
Sabbath eve. He got a room in a small hotel, then went out and
wandered about the town. He thought of his father and his fam-
ily, and weakened. But he looked up and his eyes fell upon a

nameplate at the entrance of an apartment house

—“NSDAP.
Wilhelm Gustloff.”
It was entirely by chance that he found himself in front of
Gustloff’s residence, and David saw this as a sign. He broke into a
sweat and gripped the revolver in his pocket. “Now,” he said to
himself, “the time has come to avenge the blows, insults, and
humiliations, and everything they are doing to us.” He returned
to his hotel, telling himself over and over again that he was a
soldier and must strike as a soldier, that he had a mission to carry
out. But —
he could not kill a man.
He spent another three days at the hotel, three days of mental
anguish. He blamed himself for being cowardly, his nerves were
on edge.
“
‘This can’t go on,’ I said to myself. ‘You must make up your
mind one way or the other. Either give up your plan altogether
or carry it out now. Now or never!’ It was then February 4,
1936, a Tuesday. I wrote two letters, one to my father, the other
to my sister. They were letters of farewell, and I asked forgive-
ness. ‘I have done what I have done, and I am at peace with
myself,’ I wrote. ‘I must make the sacrifice, I can trust no one
else.’

“I left the two letters on the table and set out. It was dark and I

went along the streets like a sleepwalker. I arrived at the apart-

ment house where I had seen the nameplate. On the third or
fourth floor there was a door with Gustloff’s name on it. I drew a
deep breath and rang the bell.

“A woman opened the door and I asked if Herr Gustloff was at

home. He was. I followed her along a corridor and she showed
me into a room. Through a half-opened door I could see a man
 6 .

1 THE AVENGERS

holding a telephone. He was

huge man, at least six feet tall, and
a
he was shouting, ‘We’ll show these Jewish dogs and Communists.
. .I put my hand into my pocket and slid forward the safety
.’

catch of my revolver. It was easy.

“The woman had left me alone in the room, and after a few
seconds the giant opened the door wide and came in. ‘Here I am!’
he said.

“He was fair, almost bald, and had pale eyes and a little mous-
tache like Hitler’s. Without taking my eyes off him, I drew the
revolver from my
pocket and squeezed the trigger. It misfired.
He stared at me, astonished, stepped back and then darted for-
ward and tried to tip his desk over on me. I fired once, twice — . .

three, four times. All the shots hit him — in the head, throat, and
chest. He collapsed, while I stood there still holding the revolver.
The door burst open and the woman rushed into the room. In-
stinctively,pushed her aside and ran out of the apartment.
I

Neighbors who had heard the shots were gathered on the land-
ing. Hardly knowing what I was doing, I shouted, ‘Let me pass or
I’ll shoot!’ Then I raced down the stairs and out into the snow-
covered streets. After running for about a minute, not knowing
where I was going, I was out of breath and exhausted. I wasn’t
really thinking of escaping, but of shooting myself. I don’t know
whether I put the revolver to my head. Perhaps there was no
bullet left, perhaps I didn’t have the courage to pull the trigger
— I don’t know. Ifound myself standing in front of a house, and
I rang the bell. An old man and old woman came to the door, and
I asked them politely if I could use their telephone.
could have thrown the revolver away, tried to hide, to get
“I
away. But that was out of the question. I wasn’t a criminal, and
since I was
had to account for what I had done and explain
alive I

why. Otherwise, there would be no point to it.

“The old couple let me in and I dialed the police station. ‘I
expect you know what has happened,’ I said. ‘I’m the man who
killed Wilhelm Gustloff. I’m ready for you to come and arrest
me.’ The policeman at the other end evidently didn’t believe me.
The old couple were staring at me in amazement. I thanked them
and set off for the police station.
“
‘I’m the man who called a few minutes ago,’ I told them. ‘I’m
 «
The First Vengeance l
7

the man who Wilhelm Gustloff.’ They still didn’t believe

killed
me, so I laid my revolver on the desk, as proof.
“Later, various people came to interrogate me. Among them
were the examining magistrate and several police officers from
Chur, the chief town of the district. Now that they knew Gust-
loff was dead, they took me seriously. It was past midnight by

then.
“Some time during the night, GustlofPs wife was brought
along to identify me. She took one look and said, ‘That’s the
man!’ Then she asked me why I had done —
had such gentle
it I

eyes. Because I’m fair with blue eyes, she had taken me for an
Aryan. I told her: ‘Because I’m a Jew.’
“Then she began to shout insults at me and whole to revile my
race. I was in such a state by then that I hardly heard her. I was
thinking to myself, ‘You wanted to commit suicide and you
”
haven’t done it.’

The news was on the front page of all the newspapers next
day. David’s father heard it seemed impossible for
on the radio. It
David to have done such a thing. At first Rabbi Frankfurter
thought he had misunderstood and that it was Gustloff who had
killed his son.
In Germany the news of the murder unleashed a wave of hys-
terical hatred through the country. Banner headlines in Gothic
lettering announced virulent anti-Semitic articles written by well-
known professors and intellectuals, in which they accused the
Jews of being a bloodthirsty race which drank the blood of chil-
dren and derived its taste for cruelty and murder from the Old
Testament. Hitler and Rudolf Hess sent telegrams of sympathy
to Gustloff’s widow. In Berlin a street and a square were named
after him. The Fuehrer proclaimed the dead man a national
martyr, the victim of a worldwide Jewish conspiracy. At his
funeral on February 12, 1936, Hitler declared: “This was not an
isolated attack. There is a hidden power behind this crime, a
power which intends to strike again. For the first time, this hid-
den power has shown its hand. Gustloff was murdered by this
power which is waging a fanatical war and whose objectives
extend beyond our German nation.”
i8 THE AVENGERS

Ten months elasped between the murder and David’s trial.

During this time the Germans made every effort to extradite him,
which would have enabled them to stage a big trial for world
Jewry. They contended that Gustloff had not been an ordinary
German citizen residing in Switzerland, but a member of the
diplomatic corps. They pressed the argument that the crime was
the work of a Judeo-Communist organization with
secret
branches in France and Germany.
The Swiss refused to hand over Frankfurter. But even they
found it hard to believe that such a quiet, gentle young man
could have planned and carried out the murder of the Nazi chief
by himself. So the police sought the accomplices of the “Davos
assassin.” They found no one, there was no one to find.
The trial began in Switzerland on December 8, 1936, and hun-
dreds of journalists were sent to report it, including 120 from
Germany. David Frankfurter declared that he had acted on his
own initiative, that he had no accomplice, and that he had wanted
“to sound the alarm,” to draw the world’s attention to the Nazis’
treatment of the Jews.
j

On December 12, David Frankfurter was sentenced to eighteen

years’ imprisonment.
He was freed after nine years, on June 1, 1945, three weeks
after the surrender of Germany. When he came out of prison he
was asked about his plans, and he answered: “To become a pio-
neer in Palestine.” And that is what he did.
Today, still a gentle and kind-looking man, David Frank-
furter is married and the father of two children. Fie lives in
Israel and works at the Ministry of Defense. That is where I

found him and where he told me of this first act of Jewish ven-
geance against the Nazis.
“And suppose it had to be done again?” I asked him.
“If it had to be done again,” he answered, “I wouldn’t hesitate
this time.”

Afew months after the murder of Gustloff by David Frank-

furter, the world heard of another Jew, Stephan Lukas, a journal-
ist. He committed suicide at a meeting of the League of Nations on

July 2, 1936. This was his protest against the indifference of

 *
The First Vengeance i9

many men and most nations, great and small, to the cruelties
being perpetrated by the Nazis. The world heard, too, of
Herschel Grynszpan, a boy of seventeen who shot Von Rath, a
counselor at the German Embassy in Paris, on November 7, 1938.
This assassination furnished the Nazis with a pretext for the in-
famous “Night of the Broken Glass,” when 19 synagogues were 1

burned by Nazi strong-arm gangs.

Stephan Lukas’ suicide was a sacrifice of a moral order. But it
was an act of helplessness and despair. Herschel Grynszpan killed
Counselor von Rath to avenge his family, who had been arrested
and sent to a concentration camp.
David Frankfurter’s vengeance, however, was pure and simple.
Neither he nor any of his family had suffered great harm from
the Nazis. Yet he rose, one man alone, against them all.
His act met with disapproval from Jewish communities in Ger-
many. The Jiidische Rundschau in its issue of February 7, 1936,
,

condemned the murder, invoking the commandment “Thou shalt

not kill.” “A revolver is not an argument,” the paper wrote.
“This terrible act is a crime.”
Then the full fury of the Final Solution descended upon the
Jews in Europe. When, on May 8, 1945, the world was con-
fronted with evidence of the greatest genocide in history, the
time of the Avengers had come.
 — —!

DIE JUDEN KOMMEN!

One day at the end of May 1945 an army convoy was winding its
way up a mountain road in the north of Italy. It had crossed the
river Po and the Venetian plain and was heading for the Alps.
There was something unusual about this convoy. The leading
vehicles were flying blue-and-white flags bearing the Star of
David, and on the sides of other vehicles were painted more six-
pointed stars and caustic remarks such as Deutschland Kaputt
and Kein Volk, kein Reich, kein Fuehrer! and also three signifi-
cant words Die Juden Kommen! The Jews are coming!
Suddenly another convoy appeared from the opposite direction
— jeeps of the military police, a few open Volkswagens carrying
German officers, then a long file of army trucks crammed with
German soldiers. It was a German Army unit being conducted to
a POW camp in Italy.
“Germans!” was the cry that swept along the Jewish convoy
but in Hebrew. And in each vehicle bearing the Star of David the
soldiers grabbed whatever came to hand —
tins of meat, iron bars,
tools, bronze statuettes bought as souvenirs in Florence. They
hurled these at the German prisoners as the other convoy passed,
—
and cries resounded across the roadway cries of pain and cries
of hate.
The few seconds. The convoy of prison-
incident lasted only a
ers disappeared around a bend in the road. Thus, after many
battles, did the Jewish Brigade meet German troops once again.

A few days before this incident, the Jewish Brigade was at

Brisighella, near Bologna,when rumor spread rapidly among
a

the men
— “We’re going to be sent to join the army of occupation
in Germany!” These volunteers from Palestine were well aware
20
 «
Die Juden Kommen! 21

that the British Command

had been very hesitant about letting
them come into contact with Germans, either military or civil-
ians. Indeed there was fear that the desire for revenge would be
stronger in the Jewish soldiers than their sense of discipline. But
now they were going to Germany! The men disctfssed the news
—
with great excitement it was too good to be true!
“Give us just a month there, only a month,” they told each
other. “We’ll give them something to remember us by forever.
They’ll have real reasons for hating us now. We’ll have just one
pogrom — round numbers, we’ll burn down a thousand houses,
in
kill five hundred people, and rape one hundred women.” And

more than one youngster was heard to say: “I must kill a German
in cold blood, I must. And I must rape a German girl. I don’t care
what happens afterwards. Why should we Jews be the only peo-
ple that suffered in Auschwitz and endured horrors like the War-
saw ghetto, and that had such awful memories engraved on our
minds? The Germans must have a name to remember, too the —
name of a town that we have burned to the ground, wiped from
—
the face of the earth. That’s our war aim revenge! Not Roose-
velt’s four freedoms or the greater glory of the British Empire or

Stalin’s ideology. But vengeance, Jewish vengeance.”

The day before the Brigade was to proceed to Germany, the

units were paraded. Standing under their flag, a corporal read out
the “Commandments of the Jewish soldier on German soil”:

“Remember thy six million brethren killed.

“Thou shalt always hate thy people’s oppressors.
“Remember that thou are entrusted with a mission by a com-
batant people.
“Remember that the Jewish Brigade is a Jewish force of occu-
pation in Germany.
“Remember that our arrival as a Brigade, with our emblem and
our flag, is in itself a vengeance.
“Remember that blood revenge is the revenge of the whole
community, and that any irresponsible act is detrimental to our
community.
“Behave as a Jew who is proud of his race and of his flag.
“Thou shalt not dishonor thyself by mixing with Germans.
22 THE AVENGERS

“Thou shalt not listen to their words neither shalt thou enter
their houses.
“Cursed are they, they and their wives and their children, their
goods and all that is theirs; cursed are they forever.
“Remember that thy mission is to rescue Jews, the emigration
to Israel, and the liberation of the homeland.
“Thy duty is in devotion, loyalty, and love toward those who
have escaped death, the survivors from the concentration camps.”

The soldiers of the Jewish Brigade stood stiffly at attention and

listened in silence. Within them surged a hatred mingled with a
fierce joy. The Israeli novelist Hanoch young man
Bartov, then a
serving in the Brigade, wrote later: “The blood was coursing
through our veins. Our battalions drawn up in their ranks, our
trucks and combat vehicles all ready to leave, our flag flying
overhead, and the words we had just heard made us feel that we
were an entity. Before the ‘Commandments’ were read out, the
commanding officer of our battalion had told us: ‘In your new
mission you must conduct yourselves as men with a moral code
dealing with men who have destroyed all morality.’ Mprality!
We would avenge our people. We would not take any pleasure in
or acquire a taste for
it but we would avenge them! We would
it,

become known for ever as the implacable enemies of our people’s

torturers. And each one of us was thinking, ‘Tomorrow! Tomor-
”
row I’ll be in Germany!’
The Jewish Brigade moved off at dawn next day, going north.
But a few miles from the Italian frontier, where it meets those of
Austria and Yugoslavia, the men had a bitter disappointment.
Orders to remain in Italy reached the Brigade. The British Com-
mand had decided not to risk any incidents and was sending the
Brigade to the small town of Tarvisio, to be held in readiness in
case any dispute arose over the future of Trieste.
The Jewish soldiers obeyed, despair in their hearts; vengeance
was slipping from them. Germany was forbidden ground.
However, there were a few Germans, or rather Austrians, at
Tarvisio. Some of them had been Nazis, and now that the Reich
which was to have lasted a thousand years had crumbled, they
had returned to their native town, a convenient place for getting
 *
Die Juden Kommen! 23

away to Spain orSouth America. There were remnants of SS

units, Belgians, Hungarians, and Slovakian and Italian Fascists and
Croatian Ustachis roaming about in the mountains above Tar-
visio. A few of these men tried to hide among the local popula-
tion, others got themselves admitted to hospitals' or taken to
POW camps. Their one desire was to be forgotten and to pass
unnoticed.
Soon after the Jewish Brigade arrived at Tarvisio a number of
incidents occurred in the town. Germans were assaulted, houses
belonging to known Nazis were set on fire, and several cases of
rape were reported. The culprits were never found, but the staff
officers of the Jewish Brigade, who were all affiliated with
*
Haganah became uneasy. Such irregular acts of violence were
harmful to the Jewish cause. The overwhelming desire for ven-
geance animating all the Jewish soldiers at Tarvisio had to be
channeled. To
end the Haganah leaders decided to grant a
this
small group of selected, disciplined men the right to shed blood
on behalf of all the Jewish people.
In his memoirs, Colonel Israel Karmi, now head of the Israeli
military police, wrote of the circumstances leading to the crea-
tion of this group:
“At Tarvisio, our men tried to take the law into their own
hands by attacking German houses and by other acts of ven-
geance. This kind of action did us no honor and was contrary to
the traditions of our fighting forces. Robert Grossmann (now
known as David Gour), an officer in the First Battalion, and I

were given the task of settling this problem and joined the Intelli-

gence unit of the Brigade. We entered upon this new task with
great zest.”
At that time, Israel Karmi was one of the leaders of Haganah .

Another member of the Jewish Brigade, Shalom Gil’ad, wrote

in a secret report now in the Haganah archives:
“When I enlisted in the Jewish Brigade I was not a member of
Haganah. I was approached by
Karmi, head of the special
Israel
group, who explained the secret plan to me. The group consisted
of men from the Second Battalion. They were Karmi (whose

*The Jewish Defense Force in Palestine, later the nucleus of the Israeli
Army. ( Translator's note)
24 THE AVENGERS

superior in the secret, inner council of Haganah was Shlomo

Shamir, alias ‘Fistouk,’ who became a general in the Israeli

Army), Chaim Laskov (later Commander in Chief of the Israeli

Army, from 1957 to i960), Lieutenant Zarodinski, known as Zaro
(later General Meir Zorea), Moshe Korpovitz, Marcel Tobias
(later a renowned lieutenant colonel commanding Israeli para-
troopers), Dov Cohen (a member of the terrorist organization
Etzel he was killed a few years later when, disguised as a British
,

officer, he took part in the sensational attack on the prison at St.

Jean-d’Acre and helped a number of Jewish internees to escape),

and a few others.
“One of the group was a tall, fair young fellow, very Aryan in
appearance, who gave his name as Klaus. He was
very useful to
us, not only because of his physical appearance but because he
spoke faultless German.
“Karmi explained the situation to us. He told us that Haganah
had decided to take charge of the matter and to punish only
Nazis proved to have committed crimes and who, because their
crimes had been directed mainly against Jews, might later be
released by the British or the Americans. It was decided that
Nazis guilty of crimes against people other than Jews should be
handed over to the British authorities.”
Secrecy was the prime rule of this little task force. Its activities
had to be kept from the thousands of other soldiers in the Jewish
Brigade, and obviously from the British Army Command to
which the Brigade was attached (this meant that the attacks had
to be carried out unknown to the British Officers attached to the
Brigade). Secrecy had to be observed within the group too, each
man knowing no more than was absolutely necessary for his own
knowing beforehand who would be
particular task, each aiot even
with him. Each member of the group was given a code name or
pseudonym.
“It was my platoon commander, Jonathan Friedenthal, who
brought me into the group,” Marcel Tobias said later. “If I re-
member correctly, there were eight of us. No one knew who was
the leader. We were ordered to say nothing and to beware of any
careless talk.”
Another member of the group, now a general in the Israeli
 «
Die Juden Kommen! 25

Army, has said: “In Palestine, I and other members of Haganah

were given missions to steal weapons, raid British Army camps,
and carry out defensive actions. When I went to Europe to join
the group, it was in obedience to orders. Our mission there was
one of revenge.”
But first the guilty ones had to be found and their guilt estab-
lished. The Haganah avengers would kill only when certain of
the facts. This was their guiding principle.
Their main source of information in tracking down the crimi-
nals was the Allied Intelligence Service, which had on file the
details of wanted war criminals and lists of SS officers and Nazis
whose home addresses were in the region. Among the personnel
of these Intelligence units were some British and American Jews
and even a few Palestinian Jews. “Those were the people who,
unknown with
to their superior officers, regularly supplied us
information,” a member of the group, now a general, told me.
But the files and lists did not contain all that was necessary, and
some of them were not accessible to the group’s informers.
Israel Karmi has written: “Our first task was to collate and
check all the information. Our men in the Brigade told me all
they had been able to discover about the Germans living in Tar-
visio and their past activities. Then we went through the lists of
patients in the hospital and the medical staff, for we suspected
that a number of high-ranking SS were passing themselves off as
sick people with the connivance of German doctors, thus keeping
quietly hidden until better days came or they could escape
abroad. We also closely interrogated all the Germans we held,
especially those who
had been in the SS or the Gestapo. These
interrogations proved very fruitful.
“The occupants of a certain house had aroused our suspicion,
and after a thorough search of this house we had our first impor-
tant informer. Before starting the search we had asked the owner
to tell us if he had any weapons hidden away, and we informed
him that if we found any would be shot at
after his denial he
once. We searched the place all day and finally found some
weapons hidden under the ashes in the fireplace, also some very
large sums of money. When the man saw this he was terrified
that he would be shot, and he offered to collaborate with us and
i6 THE AVENGERS

do anything we aske'd. He admitted that he had held a high

position in the Gestapo, and said that his wife had been in charge
of the confiscation of the belongings of Italian Jews. I decided
then and there to take every advantage of the man’s cowardice.
He was told to make out a detailed report on all the Nazi chiefs
he knew and to give any information he possessed about their
present whereabouts.
“Early next morning I received his first report. It was typed
and very detailed, made out with typical German thoroughness.
It contained masses of information about SS and Gestapo chiefs,
and gave the life history of each one of them — his career, his
character, the positions he had held, and his activities during the
war. We studied this and his subsequent reports with great care,
and checked them against information we already possessed.
Everything in them was absolutely correct.”
—
The group Karmi, Laskov, Zorea, Motke Sharoni, and a few
—
others thus had the needed information. They then had to de-
cide whether to pass on the information to British Field Security.
They voted in favor, but with one condition they would keep —
to themselves all information about Nazis whose activities had
been chiefly directed against Jews, for they were the men whom
the group had been directed by Haganah to deal with personally.

During the following weeks and months, SS officers, heads of

the Gestapo, and high Nazi officials mysteriously disappeared
from Klagenfurt, Innsbruck, and places in the Alto Adige and the
Austrian Tirol, many of them a hundred miles or more from
where the Jewish Brigade was stationed. Sometimes the corpses
of these men were found, but more often they seemed to have
simply vanished. Even today, the relatives of some of these Nazis
still do not know what became of them. The avengers kept their

activities secret for twenty years, and only recently did some of
the survivors of the group agree to talk.

you about one of our actions,” General X said to me,

“I’ll tell

at a place not far from Tel Aviv. “We left Tarvisio one evening,
about ten of us, in an army utility truck. This was in the sum-
mer of 1945. We had been careful to put false license tags on the
 *
Die Juden Kommen! 2 7

truck. We crossed into Austria and drove to a village near

Klagenfurt, where we stopped outside the house of the man we
were looking for. Some of us stayed outside to keep watch, the
others entered the house and ordered all the people into one
room. We were wearing our British Army uniforifis, but we had
taken off our Jewish Brigade patches and sewn on those of an-
other formation. We questioned the family, then searched the
house and found some rifles, revolvers, and field glasses. We also
found the man we were looking for.
“We had to use force to get the man into the truck. It was
dark when we left. Once on the road, we revealed our true
identity to our prisoner. ‘We’re Jews,’ we told him, ‘and we’re
going to punish you for your crimes.’ Then we read out the
charges we had drawn up against him and told him, ‘We are
going to execute you.’
“He implored us to spare him, vowed that he had always be-
haved properly and that some of his best friends were Jews! This
was in vain; we knew that he was guilty. . .

“We stopped near a wood on a lonely road and made him get
out of the truck. He continued to beg for mercy. Then one of us
put a bullet through his head. We didn’t hide the body, we didn’t
bury it. We just left it there at the side of the road.”
In the secret report to Haganah already mentioned, Shalom
Gil’ad gave details of incidents in which he took part.
“On one occasion we arrested a Pole who had collaborated
with the Nazis. We gave him a good meal and plenty to drink,
then we said to him, ‘We know that you’re a Pole and not a
German. We also know that you acted as you did because you
had no choice, so we’re not going to harm you. But to show us
that you have a clear conscience, write down the names of all the
criminals you know and where we can find them.’
“The Pole was frightened for his life, and made a list of several
dozen names.
“We usually concerned ourselves with senior SS officers. After
checking our information, we set out. To prevent our truck from
being identified, we always altered the license plate, changed or
painted over the unit sign, and so on. We each took turns at
various tasks, and I often drove the truck. We were dressed as
28 THE AVENGERS

military police. Our blue-eyed ‘Aryan,’ Klaus, did the talking. He

was the son of a German who had held a high rank in the Ges-
tapo, and a Jewess. When
Nazi persecution of the Jews increased,
Klaus’s father had sent the family to England, and from there
Klaus had later gone to Palestine. He spoke English, German, and
Hebrew.
“When we arrived at the address we had been we
told of,
knocked at the door. Since we were in British Army uniform we
were not supposed to be able to speak German; but none of us
could speak fluent English, except Klaus. So the rest of us never
said a word. When the door opened, it was always Klaus who
asked: ‘Does Herr live here? He has to report to the
Military Government office at once.’
“We usually had no difficulty. The man would go with us,

quite unsuspecting who we really were. When we were outside

the town or village, we turned to the Nazi and read out the list of
his crimes, then the death sentence pronounced on him by
Haganah. And then we carried out the sentence.
“Experience enabled us to perfect speedy, silent,and efficient
ways of dispatching the Nazi criminals we captured. This also
got us out of an awkward on more than one occasion.
situation
“It was a covered truck that we were using, and we put mat-
tresses on the floor. To get in at the back, you had to put a foot
on the bumper, part the tarpaulin, and thrust your head in first.
The moment the German’s head appeared inside, one of us seized
him by the throat and jerked him forward, falling back on the
mattress as we did so. In this way, the German performed a
somersault, and since he was still gripped around the neck, the
action was usually enough to strangle him or break his neck. And
so each man died without a word and often without a cry.
“One evening we knocked door of a house where an SS
at the
officer was living. His wife opened the door. As usual, Klaus
stated that we had come to take her husband to the British mili-
tary authorities. The woman was frightened and said that she
would not let him leave. ‘Go into the kitchen and make some
coffee,’ Klaus said peremptorily, ‘and your husband will be back
before it’s ready.’
“The German came out and his wife went with him to the
Die Juden Kommen! 29

truck. He
put a foot on the bumper, parted the tarpaulin, and
disappeared inside. If he had been able to utter a word or a cry,
his wife would have started to scream and that might have had
serious consequences for us. I was at the wheel, and, as soon as the
German was inside I let in the clutch and off we went. The
woman watched us go. It could never have occurred to her that
her husband was already dead when the truck moved off. . . .

“We used this method only when swift action was necessary.
Usually, we took the Nazis to some defense works at a remote
spot in the mountains. There we read out the sentence. Nearly
always, the man collapsed, his arrogance slipped from him, and he
started to weep. ‘Have pity on my wife and children!’ he would
beg. And we wondered how many times this man had heard the
same entreaty from Jews he was about to massacre in a concen-
tration camp.”

On Haganah a second group of avengers was

orders from ,

formed from members of the Jewish Brigade. Neither group

knew of the other’s existence; only the leaders were fully in-
formed. Both groups used basically the same methods. Lt. Col.
Marcel Tobias, who as a young volunteer had belonged to the
second group, told an Israeli journalist in 1964:
“Our covered truck would stop at the address given and we
would take away the SS officer on the pretext of a ‘routine en-
quiry.’ In the back of the truck were three military policemen,
who said not a word. When we arrived at a lake or a river, the SS
man was strangled; a large stone was tied to the body and it was
thrown into the water. On the way
would get out of the
back, I

truck about a mile from our camp and return on foot, to avoid
arousing suspicion.”
For months the avenging members of the Jewish Brigade
nightly scoured the towns and villages in northern Italy and
across the frontier in southern Austria and Germany. They de-
sisted only when the Palestinian officers who led the groups were
on duty or away on a special mission. However, these punitive
expeditions were occasionally called off for a time if widely cir-
culated rumors had aroused suspicion. The relatives of Nazis who
had mysteriously disappeared went to the British authorities to
 ) , —
3° THE AVENGERS

ask what had become of their father or their husband who had
been taken away for questioning by military police. A few bodies
had been found by villagers or by army patrols on the edge of a
wood or by the roadside. A corpse had been recovered from a
lake. Patients in the Tarvisio hospital who had little wrong with
them had died mysteriously, and Nazis being held in prison by
the British had “escaped.” And each time a soldier of the Jewish
Brigade had been on guard duty.
“We ordered our man who was on guard duty to tell the
British that his prisonerhad escaped,” General X told me. “We
executed the German and hid his body. Then our man reported
the escape to the British and took the subsequent punishment
stoppage of pay or confinement to barracks without a mur- —
mur.”
The British investigations produced no results, officially. But it
is difficult to believe that British Headquarters never suspected
the truth. More likely, the investigating officers preferred to look
the other way.

Dealing out vengeance was not the only clandestine activity

entrusted to the Jewish Brigade. In the eyes of its leaders, who
were all members of Haganah the main task was to organize
emigration to Palestine.
The news soon spread that a Jewish military formation was
few miles from the Austrian frontier, and the
stationed in Italy, a
Brigade became a magnet for all the Jews who had survived the
concentration camps. Thousands of them, undergoing great per-
sonal risk, reached Tarvisio, exhausted and in rags. The Jewish
soldiers built a transit camp for the poor wretches, where they
were fed and clothed. Routes were secretly organized for these
men and women to reach Palestine.*
Amazing as it may seem, some Nazi criminals succeeded in
infiltrating among these Jewish refugees, as Gil’ad’s account indi-
cates:
“A woman SS officer had escaped from a prison camp and
succeeded in getting into the transit camp. She passed herself off
* Palestine was still under British mandate and immigration was restricted.
(Translator' s note
 «
Die Juden Kommen! 3 1

as a Jewess and said that she came from Hungary. In this particu-
lar case, we were helped by the fact that the Jewish Brigade had
its own military police unit. When the British learned of this
woman’s escape, they circulated her description and photograph
to all security units, including our military police. We made a
check among the refugees and easily identified the woman.
“We didn’t arrest her, and we did nothing which might have
made her suspect that her true identity had been discovered. We
sent one of our men to talk to her. He spoke in German, and she
answered Hungarian that she did not understand. So we sent
in
someone else, a Hungarian Jew, who said to her: ‘An emigrant
ship is about to sail for Palestine. Get your things together and
come with us.’
“She couldn’t very well refuse, she had to swallow the bait.
We took her away in the truck. On that occasion, I was in the
back with Zaro, and Karmi was driving. Before we started out, he
had said, ‘When we are in the mountains, I’ll sound the horn as a
signal.’

“When he did, we executed the woman. Her last words were

in German, “Was ist los?”
 \

THE “GERMAN BATTALION”

u
In the autumn of 1945 another Jewish unit , the German Battal-
ion,” joined the Brigade at Tarvisio. This unit was undoubtedly
one of the most extraordinary in World War II. It was formed in

Palestine, then under British mandate, and consisted entirely of

—
Jews specially selected. Enrolled were only fair, blue-eyed Jews
who could speak German fluently. They spoke only German in
the battalion, and were trained and drilled in the German
manner.
The unit had its roots back in 1942, when Rommel’s Afrika
Korps had advanced across Libya, swept back the British, and
threatened Cairo. The leaders of the Jews in Palestine feared that
the Germans might overrun Egypt and invade them. To meet the
threat, Haganah had only one small effective force, the Palmach
brigade, composed of about 2,500, nearly all young pioneers from
the kibbutzim.* The Palmach leaders, following a suggestion of
a young fighter called Moshe Dayan, decided to form a special
unit to act in the enemy’s rear, cutting his communications and
creating general confusion. (A similar unit, commanded by Otto
Skorzeny, took part in Von Rundstedt’s Ardennes offensive in
December 1944, wearing American Army uniforms.) The Pal-
mach unit would wear German uniforms.
Thousands of German and Austrian Jews had arrived in Pales-
tine since the advent of Nazism, so of course it was not difficult
to find a number of volunteers whose mother tongue was Ger-
man. Before long they were in training in the forest of Mishmar
Haemek, at the entrance to the Izreel Valley, all fair-haired, blue-

* At this period, too, the “Carmel Redoubt” plan was drawn up. Mount
Carmel was to be made a stronghold that could resist all German attacks.

32
 ” «
The “ German Battalion 33

eyed young men who held themselves as stiffly as Prussian offi-

cers, clicked their heels when and readily cried “Heil

saluting,
Hitler!” Shimon Koch, a big strapping fellow with a moustache,
was given the command of this Deutsche Abteilung or German ,

unit. Later, as Colonel Avidan, he achieved renown during the

Israeli War of Independence as the leader of one of the finest

Palmach units.
The volunteers were forbidden to speak any Hebrew, and they
were taught German Army terms and practices. They used Ger-
man Army manuals, and their headquarters was a cave, draped
with Third Reich and swastika banners. When on
flags of the
route marches or sitting round the campfire in the evening, these
young Jews whose relatives were dying in gas chambers sang the
Horst Wessel Lied and German marching songs at the top of
their voices. Two number succeeded in getting into a
of their
German POW camp in Egypt. Their mission was not to discover
the Nazis among the prisoners, but to pick up the little ways
—
peculiar to German soldiers their way of making a bed, of open-
ing a tin can, and their army slang.
This specialized unit was never, as a whole, used in battle. By the
time training was completed, the Afrika Korps had retreated and
the Allies were about to go over to the offensive. The Palmach
leaders made requests to the British for the Deutsche Abteilutig to
be employed in the field; but for political reasons —chiefly to avoid
offending the Arabs —the showed little enthusiasm. How-
British
ever, Shimon Koch and his men were eventually sent to Europe
as the “Special Interrogation Group.” They landed in Italy a week

after the cessation of hostilities. A few months later they were

sent to join the Jewish Brigade. Shimon Koch and a few of his
most reliable men soon became members of the group of
avengers.
“We arrived in Europe too one of the leaders
late,” Colonel B.,

of the Deutsche Abteilung told me later in his apartment in Tel

,

Aviv. “The war was over. It was then that Israel Karmi, Zorea,
and Laskov got in touch with me and asked me to join them.
“Our base of operations was Camporosso, a village about a mile
from Tarvisio, and our actions took place within the triangle
34
\ THE AVENGERS
*

formed by Tarvisio iit Italy and Innsbruck and Judenburg in

Austria. I was approached because I had'been a student at Trieste
and spoke good Italian and a little Croat.
“At that time, Innsbruck was a center for the secret services of
all the great powers. The town swarmed with spies, double
agents, and informers. I managed to make contact with a few
very useful but hardly respectable people.
“At Klagenfurt I got to know an odd sort of fellow, a Yugo-
slav officer who was one of Tito’s men. He went by the name of
Yanko. I never asked him his real name; he would only have lied.
He was said to have been a spy during the war. In any case, he
had spent most of it in Innsbruck. He was a small man with a
long nose, spoke German very well, and seemed very well in-
formed.
“Our usual meeting place was outside the NAAFI, the British
army canteen, in Klagenfurt. We had a prearranged signal in case
one of us had discovered that he was being followed, and then the
other would walk on. Otherwise we went by a roundabout way
to the public gardens and sat on a bench.
“It was there that Yanko gave me the name and address of a
man who had played an important part in Hitler’s ‘Final Solu-
tion.’ He was the brother of the Gauleiter of Styria and he lived
in Innsbruck.
“I remember comrades who went to arrest him wore
that the
British Army uniforms with the insignia of a unit stationed in
Innsbruck. There were six of them altogether. One was Eps, who
is now farming in Galilee; another was ‘Little Ginger,’ who was

killed in his armored car near the Arab village of Yahoud during
the War of Independence; and another one of them later died a
hero’s death in 1948, killed by a direct hit when he was covering
the attack on Wadi Mahloul. At that time, most of them were
only eighteen or nineteen, and I was thirty-eight. I wasn’t with
them in the truck, but I know that everything went off all right.

“The Austrian Nazi was and fair and was wearing Leder-
tall

hosen Tirolean leather shorts, with colored stockings and hob-

,

nailed boots. Our men told him that he had to go with them to
 ”
The “ German Battalion 35

sign a register at unit headquarters. Once in the truck, they

crossed into Italy with him. By then the truth was beginning to
dawn on the Nazi. My friend Sasha and Iwere waiting for them
in an empty house near the village of Pontebba, not far from
Tarvisio, and Sasha interrogated the Austrian. Atffirst he denied
everything. But we had with us two young Polish Jews who had
fled country and joined the Brigade. They had suffered
their
under the Nazis, and they couldn’t contain themselves for long.
—
They started to beat up the Nazi a question, then a blow; an-
other question, another blow. . . .

“In the end, the man admitted everything, and said that he had
sent Jews to the extermination camps. But he tried to absolve
himself by saying that he had only been obeying orders. Then he
pleaded that one of his near relatives had hidden some Jews. This
—
was true a cousin of his had given shelter to two Jewish fami-
lies. He had known of this, but had not denounced his cousin.

“But in our eyes that was not enough to absolve him. He had
to pay for his crimes. As a last resort he tried to put all responsi-
bility on his brother, the Gauleiter.
“We took him out to the kitchen garden at the back of the
house, where we had dug a deep hole. ‘I know you haven’t told
us the whole truth,’ Sasha said to him, ‘and if you don’t talk now,
I’m going to shoot you.’
“The man began to stammer something, and we probably
could have gotten more information out of him, but just then one
of the Poles shot him in the back of the neck. We buried him in
the hole and went away.”

Not long afterward, the Brigade received orders to move up

into Germany. And this time the orders were not counter-
manded. The vehicles with the Star of David painted on them
crossed the frontier and went deep into Germany.
The Haganah secret avengers continued their activities when
they arrived in Germany, and some of these young Jews found
themselves in very painful situations. Gil’ad has told of one par-
ticularly sad case.
“One of the young members of the group, who had joined it
36 THE AVENGERS

from the Deutsche Ahteilung had Jewish father and German

,
a
mother. When we arrived in the neighborhood of Stuttgart,
where he was born, he wanted to go and see what had happened
to his family. He took his Sten and set off on his motorcycle he —
was a liaison sergeant.
“He found mother and sister, but they didn’t want to have
his

anything to do with him. He asked them where his father was,

and finally they told him curtly that he was dead. He persisted in
his questions and they admitted that his father had been mur-
dered by Germans. He wanted to know who they were, but his
mother and sister refused to tell him. So he threatened them with
his Sten, and they gave him the names and addresses of the cul-
prits.

When he returned to camp he looked

though his world had
as
collapsed. He was crying like a child. We went with him to track
down his father’s murderers; we found them and executed them
on the spot.”

The Jewish Brigade did little more than cross through Ger-
many, because the British High Command thought it advisable to
move the Brigade into Belgium. From there it was sent to Hol-
land and then to France. In these countries, of course, the group
of avengers could not continue their activities.
During the next few months, however, some members of the
group did track down and kill Nazis. But these were individual
acts. Haganah had issued orders that henceforth all the zeal and

cunning of its members had to be directed to one end the emer- —

gence of an independent Jewish State in Palestine, the future
State of Israel.
No one knows how many Nazis were killed by members of the
Jewish Brigade. Estimates vary greatly, understandably enough,
since most of the avengers knew only about their own activities.
Marcel Tobias has “more than fifty” Nazis were exe-
said that
cuted, but other members of the group give much higher figures.
According to Gil’ad, the group operated almost every night for
six months, which could mean that it carried out about 150 exe-

cutions. To this figure should be added the number of Nazis who

were discovered feigning illness in the hospital at Tarvisio and
 ”
The “ German Battalion 37

were taken away and shot. Another avenger, one who should
know, gave me the estimate “between two and three hundred.”
Of more concern than the number of Nazis put to death
which, in any case, was infinitesimal compared to the extent of
their crimes and the number of their victims —
are the feelings of
the avengers, their state of mind, and their motives. I have tried
to find out what they think of it all today, more than twenty
years later.

Ihad long conversations with several of these avengers and I

came to the conclusion that all of them, without exception, had
felt that they were entrusted with a historic, national mission,

that they were the representatives of a whole race. Even today,

they are convinced that they were only doing their duty. Grati-
fying their desire for vengeance does not appear to have affected
their moral integrity or mental stability. Nearly all of them,
whether their past activities are known or not, now occupy im-
portant civilian or military positions in Israel and are quite nor-
mal men.
Indeed, probably because they were normal men, they often
hesitated before carrying out their acts of vengeance. As General
X said tome: “Before leaving on one of those expeditions we
used to read the Jewish Agency’s reports on the death camps and
the wholesale extermination of our people. That was to get us in
the right state of mind, to push on with it. We were not murder-
ers and, believe me, it was not always easy.
“We weren’t afraid of the danger. What we
was not in-
did
tended as warnings to people who might be tempted to revive
Nazism and all its horrors. No, our deeds were secret, and had
to remain secret. ... It might as well be said —
what we did was
pure revenge. You’ve heard the saying ‘Vengeance is sweet,’
haven’t you? Well, it was for me, I admit. When I had killed a
Nazi, knowing that he or one of his kind had torn a baby from
its mother’s arms and dashed its head against a wall, then shot the

—
mother in front of the father then my vengeance was sweet,
very sweet. Yes, I killed more than once, and I’ll tell you this
if it had to be done again, I’d do it. We were wholly justified

morally, and I’ve never felt the slightest pang of remorse.”

Colonel B. also believes Jewish vengeance was right and neces-
38 THE AVENGERS

sary, but he admits to certain scruples. “You want to know what

I felt after one of the killings? It was always the same nausea. —
Of course, I was satisfied to see the Nazi die. But I knew it was
really the gratification of a warlike instinct, of a cruel taste for
vengeance. Nothing more than that. After all, you can’t bring six
million people back to life again.”
When, as a young man, General Zorea enlisted in the British
Army, he asked to be sent to a Commando unit. “Iwanted to kill
Nazis,” he once told a journalist. But his request was refused, as
were not accepted for the Commandos.
Palestinians
Zorea has always refused to say anything on the subject. But
when I saw him at his kibbutz, in his small room, he told me: “I
am not a professional killer. However, I have carried out a num-
ber of assassinations, systematically and rationally. And I don’t
regret it.”

I also went to see General Laskov, one time Commander in

Chief of the Israeli Army
and now the managing director of the
Port Authority. He said: “Vengeance? The executions were sec-
ondary. We
enlisted in the Brigade with four aims in mind to —
fight the Nazis as men, to fight them as Jews, to rescue the sur-
vivors of the holocaust and bring them to Palestine, and to lay the
foundations of the Israeli Army. Our real vengeance was in the
thousands of Jews who fought bravely on the Italian fronts and
went into battle singing. Our real vengeance was the Jewish
Army; it was the State of Israel.”

The group of avengers from the Jewish Brigade had ended its

activities, but another group, even more secret and implacable,

continued in its place. The story of this second group has never
before been told. Colonel B. was the mention it to me.
first to
“When we were at Tarvisio,” he said, “a group of Jewish
refugees from Eastern Europe arrived there. They were a myste-
rious lot, well supplied with money and forged identity papers,
—
and they had but one idea in mind vengeance. All I know about
them is that they did some terrible things. Only their leaders can
tell you the full facts, if you can find them and if they’ll break
their silence.”
 «
”
The “German Battalion 39

I did find these leaders, in Israel, and they told me their story
the story of some fifty men and women who, one night in the
early weeks of 1945, in a ruined house in Poland, vowed to de-
vote their lives to avenging their race.
4

THE POISONED BREAD

“We'd better begin in Lublin said the man 1 will call Beni.
We were at a kibbutz, sitting in a small room. The shutters
were closed against the glaring afternoon sun, which nevertheless
cast strange patterns on the bookshelves that held several hundred
volumes. Opposite me sat a woman and three men. One of these,
a brawny, red-headed man, has a business in Tel Aviv; the sec-
ond, with twinkling eyes and almost bald head, is the principal of
a big school; and the third, a member of the kibbutz where we
were, is a writer. When I first met him I had particularly noticed
his eyes, brown, deep-set, very sad; eyes that seemed to hold

secret, terrible memories. They reminded me of the eyes of chil-

dren who had been found alive in Auschwitz.
He was the man speaking to me, the leader of the men whose
story he was about to divulge.
“It all started early in 1945, when the war was still on,” said
Beni. “Warsaw was still in German hands, but Lublin had just
been liberated by the Russians and was the provisional capital
of Poland. So a number of Jews gathered there, partisan fighters
and members of the Resistance, some coming from the ghettos
and some from the forests.
“They had left their partisan groups and set out, each to return
to the town or village where he used to live. And there, each had
found his house in ruins and learned that his family had been
murdered or had simply vanished. And now, all around them, the
populations freed from German domination were coming back to
life. Poles, Russians, Lithuanians —
all were beginning to rebuild

their homes and their countries. They were beginning to forget,

too, for all their thought and energy went into the huge task of
removing the scars of war and reconstructing their towns.
40
The Poisoned Bread «
41

“But the Jews had no country, no towns to reconstruct; they

had no exiled government in Moscow or London. With all this
feverish activity going on around them, the Jews felt more alone
than ever, terribly alone. They didn’t even know what had hap-
pened to their survivors. Their thoughts turned' to the far-off
country of Palestine, the land of Israel, because they felt bound
to it by tradition and religion. So they decided to make their way
to Palestine.
“No contact existed between these militant Jews of Eastern
Europe and Haganah; they acted on their own initiative, without
any orders or support. Forty or fifty of them, with hardly any
resources other than their own will and energy, eventually cre-
ated a huge organizationwhich enabled tens of thousands of Jews
from Central and Eastern Europe to reach Palestine.
“They organized a complete clandestine network. Agents were
sent out, going as far afield as the Baltic, the Black Sea, and deep
into Russia, to gather together and lead groups of Jews in the
great exodus. First though, a breach had to be made or found for
the emigrants to pass out of Europe.”
Beni stopped speaking and lit a cigarette, drawing on it
thoughtfully. Here in this friendly room, in a kibbutz surrounded
by the tender green trees planted by pioneers, I could imagine
what an effort it was for Beni to remember. The pictures form-
ing in his mind were not just of a different period but of a
different world, a world of bitterness and suffering.
“The Jews of the Lublin group,” he went on, “had three years
of guerrilla fighting behind them. Like tens of thousands of other
partisans in Eastern Europe, they had taken part in armed risings
against the Nazi oppressors while millions of their brothers were
being sent to the gas chambers. They all remembered the splen-
did comradeship of other fighters, especially the Russians and the
Poles, in the ghettos and then in the forests. But this experience
had been marred by a great disappointment. The young Jews
among the partisan groups and underground fighters had wanted
to fight as Jews, to continue the struggle with all other enemies
of the Germans, but under the Jewish flag. They were not al-

lowed this honor.

“After the liberation of Poland, when the war had been carried
42 THE AVENGERS

into Germany, this feeling of frustration increased. The combat-

ant Jews then asked permission to form a contingent of their
own, to pursue the war on Nazi Germany. This was not allowed
either. They wondered whether they could at least help to free
—
the land of Israel. But that, too, seemed impossible they were so
far from Palestine and were entirely without means.
“The Lublin Jews remained bitter; they looked around them at
other Jews, and were not at all pleased with what they saw. Very
cautiously, a small Jewish colony was being formed, and its insti-
tutions and way of life were those of the prewar Jewish commu-
nity. Its leaders, like others before them, were intent on position
and rank. Instead of a fresh start, it was as though Auschwitz and
—
Treblinka had never been there were the same old habits, the
same self-interest, quarrels, and political rivalry. This seemed
monstrous to us. The men in my group felt disgust for that kind
of life. The chimneys of the death ovens were still smoking, and
for these fortunate ones everything was to go on as before. No,
that must not be. The group had to take action, had to do what
others were not doing and never would, but which, after Ausch-
witz and Treblinka, demanded to be done.”
The evening shadows were gathering over the kibbutz. A smil-
ing little girl came into the room to kiss her father good night,
then went out again. Our host gave us coffee. Our talk continued
all night. We took breaks when we laughed and made trivial

conversation, but each time one of the persons opposite me took

up the came over me. Indeed, I could
story, a feeling of unreality
not even remember the world these men were talking about.
“We know that vengeance is a weapon of the weak,” Beni
went on, “but what were we to do to ensure that such crimes
would not be forgotten? For people to understand that such evil
acts are inevitably punished? That is what was constantly in our
minds, but we did not know what to do.
“We knew, though, what we would not do. We didn’t intend
to go hunting for this or that criminal. None of the men in our
group had been in a concentration camp. Call what we intended
to do ‘vengeance,’ if you like, but that’s because no language has a
better word, a word to give the exact meaning. You might say
The Poisoned Bread 43

that we were impelled by a metaphysical idea, the idea that it was

inconceivable, after such horrors, that another horror should not
make the murderers scream with terror in their turn.
“No one in the ghetto had told us to go out and fight. Each of
us had made the decision for himself. So no one could give us the
order to ‘take revenge.’ It was up to us to make our own choice
and to accept the responsibilities. And we chose vengeance
because we was inconceivable that the murderers and
had to. It

oppressors should be able to go on living peacefully in Germany

or abroad. And we decided to strike hard, so that everyone
should be impressed and such atrocities would never occur again.
“That was the task we gave ourselves.”

They set out for Germany in the early spring of 1945. The
war was not yet over, and the Group of Fifty had to cross
Eastern Europe without running afoul of the Russian security
police, the NKVD, who were very much on the alert. At that
time, the striped garments of inmates of concentration camps
were an acceptable passport, so some of the group wore them.
But not all. One of them, Jacob, asked Beni, who was dressed as
an officer of the Polish Nationalist Army, to tattoo a number on
his forearm, like the numbers borne by the Jews who had

been in concentration camps. Another had false identification

papers showing him to be a Bulgarian partisan. One of the girls
—
was passing herself off as a deported Greek although she did not
know a word of Greek. When questioned, she answered in
Hebrew.
A small party of them ran into a NKVD security check. Their
papers were found to be false and they were put in prison. The
officer who questioned them wanted to know where their print-
ing press was, or which foreign power had supplied them with
the false identification papers.
The young Jews said nothing. Their “secret printing press”
was there in the prison cell and the “foreign power” was the man
who carried the materials for making false identity papers in a
small bag.
They were eventually released.
 \

44 THE AVENGERS

There were hordes of refugees and displaced persons trudging

along the roads in all directions. Deserters and criminals were
among them. All were famished, there was much looting, some-
times even murder. It was not wise to go about alone. Churches
and synagogues were used as centers for black-market activities,
gold smuggling, and prostitution. The day after one camp was
liberated, three hundred women were raped by their liberators.
The few trains were crammed full, with an overflow clinging to
the buffers and sitting on the roofs of the carriages.
“If anyone was foolish enough to let others see that he had
some bread or a piece of chicken,” said Moshe, one of the four
facing me, “they attacked and killed him, then threw the body
onto the line. The Poles called that ‘making the journey to Mex-
”
ico.’

With fighting going on and security controls at every

still

frontier, at almost every major crossroads, it was impossible

for the group of Lublin Jews to pursue vengeance. Instead, it took
on another task, the constructive one of gathering together some
of the starving, ragged Jews from the concentration camps, who
were wandering about aimlessly, and helping them get to Pales-
tine.

Beni and companions had thought that a few hundred at

his
most would join them. But they soon found many thousands
flocking to them, all exhausted, bewildered, and possessing noth-
ing. They formed this mob along military lines, into the “Divi-
sion of Eastern European Survivors.” It was the only way to give
some kind of cohesion to this flow of hapless people who had not
yet shaken off the lethargy of despair. And the “Division” set off,
walked across Poland and into Romania. Special detachments
were responsible for dealing with the food problem, and others
went on ahead to arrange billets for the night.
“We even had a secret-mission service,” Jacob told me. “I was
at the head of it because I had served in the NKVD
and had some
files and lists of names. The aim was to punish those who had
. . .

collaborated with the enemy.”

At Bucharest the leaders of the Division met the first Jewish
envoys from Palestine.
 4

The Poisoned Bread «

45

Moshe took up “We

had planned to buy a ship at the
the story.
Black Sea port of Constanta to take everyone to Israel. But the
plan fell through. We knew that the Palestinian Brigade of the
British Army was in northern Italy and we decided to link up
with it.” ^
They set off again, crossed Yugoslavia, and arrived near the
Italian frontier. And when they met soldiers of the Jewish Bri-
gade, they went wild with joy.
In the small room, the woman nodded to the burly, red-headed
man. “He had gone off on reconnaissance one night, and was
walking close to the frontier, not far from Trieste, singing in
Hebrew. Suddenly, voices from the other side of the frontier
joined in, taking up the song in Hebrew. They were Palestinian
soldiers!”
When the men of the Brigade saw the long column of refugees
approaching, they could hardly believe their eyes. Some of the
Jews were dressed in Hitler Youth uniforms that they had found
in a warehouse on the way.
“The first mission had been successfully carried out,” said Beni.
“The column had reached safety. From then on, the Brigade and
the Haganah envoys would look after them. We were asked to go
on being responsible for the and to see that it reached
‘Division’
Palestine. Some people couldn’t understand why we refused. But
those of us who belonged to the Lublin group had not forgotten
our main aim — revenge. Wewanted to devote our energies to
that.”
However, Haganah persisted in its demand. The Lublin group
and the “Division” had been of great help to the Jewish cause.
“Some of us had volunteered to take a secret radio transmitter
from Italy to Poland. Also, they thought we had large funds of
money — Haganah envoys tried to obtain a loan of half a million
dollars from us. Actually, we had little money — certainly not half
a million. And we wanted to keep the little we had for our future
missions.”
There were some of them very
discussions and arguments,
acrimonious. The Lublin group persisted in its refusal to go at
once to Palestine, and someone remarked, “You must be mad!”
46 THE AVENGERS

such a mass slaughter has left fifty madmen

“If alive, then
we’ve every right to be mad,” was Beni’sj’eply.
Seeing their stubborn resolution, Shimon Koch and some other
members of —who had been avengers or belonged to the
Haganah
Deutsche Abteilung— supported them. Later few even took a
part in the activities of the Lublin group.

“In July 1945,” Beni continued, “we started our preparations

for going into Germany.”
The Lublin group took the code name of Nakam a Hebrew ,

word meaning vengeance. The fifty partisans, who included eight

girls, were formed into several sections, each with a special re-

sponsibility. Moshe became “head of European operations.”

They were each given several forged identity cards French, —
Dutch, Danish, and German. One section had the task of obtain-
ing the money the organization needed.
“We
had large sums in forged sterling notes which had come
from secret Nazi caches,” Beni explained, “but we needed a lot
more money, much more, and to get it we often turned to highly
questionable methods.”
“I remember our first theft very well,” Jacob put was in
in. “It

Lublin. One of us dressed up as a Polish policeman and went to a

rich Jew in the town to confiscate his ‘treasure.’ The man guessed
what it was all about, and later came to Israel after us, hoping to
get his money back. He’s living not far from here now.”
There was one quick way of making big money in those days,
and that was by smuggling. So the Nakam men became smug-
glers. They soon acquired a sound reputation in the business, and

their activities covered everything —foreign currency, cigarettes,

medical supplies. Their experts even went to Russia to buy gold
at low prices to sell at a high profit in Italy.
“Sometimes,” Jacob admitted, “our men had to mix with the
criminal underworld and professional smugglers, but I can assure
you that not one of them made anything for himself out of these
activities. We lived as meagerly as possible, sharing everything
and with one aim —vengeance. All the money we amassed went
toward that.”
The Poisoned Bread *
47

The leaders of Nakam considered three different plans which

they named A, B, and C.
“Plan B was the main one,” said Beni. “What was needed was
to strike a massive blow
SS and prominent Nazis in the
at the
internment camps. We were afraid, and rightly ^so, that they
would soon be set free and allowed to return home without being
punished. Once we had carried out plan B, we would proceed to
plan C, which was to hunt down and kill all the notorious Nazi
criminals that we could.”
“And what about plan A?” I asked.
Beni seemed rather embarrassed and he hesitated before going
on.“The Nakam leaders evolved a scheme which was disclosed to
only a very few people. Much time and money went into the
preparations. We knew that if we succeeded, no other action
would be necessary. Looking back, it could be called a diabolical
scheme. was designed to kill millions of Germans. Yes, millions,
It

and all at the same time, men, women and children, old and
young. The main difficulty was that we wanted to kill only Ger-
mans, and at that time there were large Allied armies and thou-
sands of displaced persons of all nationalities still in Germany.
Besides, some of us were loath to commit such a terrible deed,
even against Germans.
“That’s why we concentrated on plan B. After a few months
of casting around we found the place to strike at an intern- —
ment camp near Nuremberg, which had been a hotbed of
Nazism. There were 36,000 SS held in this camp. So, early in
1946, we sent an advance party there, to prepare the way for our
first act of revenge.”
Jacob took up the story. “We had decided to poison the 36,000
SS, and I was in charge of the plan. I began by getting two of our
men taken on at the camp, one as a driver and the other as a
storekeeper. Then others got jobs as clerks. They soon found out
that the camp was supplied with bread by a big Nuremberg
bakery near the railway on the outskirts of the town. Thousands
of loaves were delivered to the camp every day.
“The first thing was to know which bread went to the prison-
ers and which to the troops — American, British, and Polish —who
48 THE AVENGERS

were guarding the camp. I got one of my men taken on at the

bakery. He found out everything we wanted to know how the —
bread was made, what kind of flour was used, the temperature of
the ovens, how the bread was delivered to the camp, and the time
that elapsed between its delivery and its issue to the prisoners.
We were then able to proceed to the next stage, which was to
take samples of the bread and send them to our experts.”
The members of Nakam still refuse to divulge where these
analytical laboratories were, but there is reason to believe that
one was at Tarvisio and another in France. In each laboratory an
industrial chemist carried out several experiments with different
poisons. They needed a poison that would act slowly; otherwise
the majority of the SSwould be warned when they saw the first
men who received bread collapse after eating it. Another prob-
lem was how to put the poison into the bread. If it was injected
into the loaf it would not spread evenly. Experiments showed
that the best method was to spread the poison on top of the
loaves; they were always floured, and the poison —
arsenic, with
—
other ingredients was just as white and would not be noticed.
The group had accomplices among Jews in the ranks of the
American troops guarding the camp. And the men of the
Deutsche Abteilung would help the avengers escape once the
deed was done. There were several escape routes, by which the
group would get away in twos and threes to the Russian zone,
Czechoslovakia, Austria, and France.
By
April 1946, they were ready to put the plan into effect.
Three days before, Joseph, the “blond Aryan” of the group, who
had belonged to the Deutsche Abteilung brought the poison in a
,

Mercedes. He had also been given the task of aiding the escape of
one section of the group. When night fell, Joseph and Jacob made
an inspection of the neighborhood of the bakery buildings, which
were near some army stores guarded by American troops. The
means of getting away from the bakery were rehearsed.
The following day, the members of the group who worked at
the bakery seemed to be suffering from some affliction. They
arrived at work looking blown out, walking with difficulty. Ac-
tually, each carried under his clothes a large rubber hot-water
 r

The Poisoned Bread « 49

bottle containing a thick, sticky liquid —the poison. They con-

cealed the hot-water bottles in a wooden building that was used
for storage, where the loaves taken from the ovens were kept
until delivery to the camp. While the other bakery workers were
away, the avengers took up the floorboards and^dug a trench
deep enough for them to hide in if they were interrupted while
poisoning the bread. In this hiding place they put the big pot to
be used for the final mixing of the poison, also the brushes for
spreading the mixture on the loaves, and gloves to protect their
hands. They would make their escape through a hole they had
discovered in the outside wall of the bakery.
“The Americans were keeping a strict guard on their stores,”
Jacob went on. “The military police had dogs with them, and the
whole place was lit up all night. But we weren’t too worried. We
could take care of the Americans all right. If we were surprised
by Germans we could do one of two them or take to
things — kill

our heels. But I had forbidden my men to carry revolvers on the

night of the operation. There were too few of us to risk losing a
single one.
“We hoped to poison 14,000 loaves; that meant at least six

hours’ work for five men. Two men had to keep stirring the
mixture in the pot, as the arsenic was inclined to separate from
the other ingredients.
“We’d decided that a Saturday night would be best —the bak-
ery was closed on Sundays, which gave us an extra twenty-four
hours between the baking of the bread and its delivery to the
camp.”
The night of Saturday, April 1 3, 1946, was the time chosen.
Saturday morning, the first of the group’s workmen arrived at
the bakery, hid his hot-water bottle in the wooden store, and
waited for his comrades. Shortly afterward, the other two ar-
rived and hid with him. Jacob and another man were to arrive
later, at one o’clock.
But as luck would have it, the bakery men went on strike later
in the morning, following with the management. They
a dispute
all walked out at midday, locking the doors behind them. When

Jacob and his companion arrived an hour later they could not get
5° THE AVENGERS

in, and had to wait in hiding nearby. So three men instead of five
were inside the bakery.
When it got dark, the three set to work. They poured the
arsenic mixture into the pot; one of the men stirred it while the
other two began spreading the poison on the loaves, one by one,
by the light of candles. Then a storm broke over the town, the
—
wind howled and a sudden gust tore down a wooden shutter,
which smashed a window in its fall. German night watchmen
heard the noise and hurried to investigate.
“In those days,” Jacob explained, “bread was scarce in Ger-
many, so we had decided that if our men were discovered they
should make it look like an attempt to steal the loaves. Which
they did, scattering loaves all over the place. Then two of them
got away through the hole in the wall, while the third hid in the
trench with the pot.
“The night watchmen sent for the police when they saw all the
disorder. The round and, as
police soon arrived, had a quick look
we had expected, concluded that someone had been stealing
bread. The brushes and gloves weren’t noticed. When the police
and night watchmen had gone, the third man came out, of the
trench, hid all the equipment under the floorboards, and then got
away through the break in the wall, like the others. Joseph was
waiting with his Mercedes, and we were all on our way out of
Germany that night.”

—
So “Operation Poisoned Bread” failed but not entirely. The
avengers had had time to spread poison on more than 2,000
loaves. On Monday, April 15, 1946, all the loaves, poisoned and
not poisoned, were delivered to the POW
camp. One loaf was
issued to every five or six prisoners. In the course of the day,
thousands of SS were seized with violent stomach pains. Accord-
ing some accounts published in Nuremburg newspapers,
to
12,000 POW
suffered from arsenic poisoning and several thou-
sands of them died.
But the numbers were greatly exaggeraged. The avengers’ esti-
mate was that 4,300 prisoners had been affected. About 1,000
were hurried to American Army hospitals, and 700 or 800 died in
 «
The Poisoned Bread 5 1

the next few days. Others became paralyzed and died during the
year. The avengers estimate about ,000 deaths altogether. i

The American military police were not long discovering the

origin of the poisoning. The fact that the bread was the cause led
them to search the bakery. They found the pot Containing the
remains of the mixture and all the equipment, but their inquiries
to discover the culprits led nowhere. The American authorities
did not want the affair to become known in other POW camps
or among the German and took appropriate
civilian population,
measures to hush it up. German newspapers were forbidden to
publish reports about it. The only report was put out by the
German news agency DANA, which was under Allied Military
Government control. This account stated that in ex-Stalag XIII,
which was being used to hold SS POW, the bread had been
poisoned by “four displaced persons, deportees, who were then
working at the bakery. The American police found four
. . .

empty bottles and other bottles full of arsenic.” According to this

account, 2,283 prisoners had been taken ill, 207 had been admitted
to the hospital, but there had been no deaths. In fact, there seem
to have been a number of deaths; but the American authorities
had good reasons for wanting to suppress this.

Special police units tried to track down the Nakam group, but
without success. Two of the group, Jacob and his companion,
however, had been held by German frontier guards when trying
But the German police were unable
to cross into Czechoslovakia.
to make a definite charge against them, and they were released
the following day. The Czech authorities were at that time on
very good terms with the Jewish Agency, so the two were al-
lowed to enter Czechoslovakia.
The other members of the group escaped to Italy and France.
Moshe, the “head of operations,” had gone to Germany to super-
vise the “poisoned bread” plan, and all the other leaders of
Nakam were in Paris. Friends in the French Resistance had al-

ready rendered them signal service, and now helped them to lie

low for a time in a town in the provinces.

“The French Intelligence Services,” I was told by a private
52 THE AVENGERS

source, “were alone in piercing the mystery of the poisoned

bread affair. They even knew who the avengers were.”
The and Czechoslo-
avengers did not stay long in France, Italy,
vakia. When the excitement had died down, they returned to
Germany. And their vengeance continued.
 *

THE DEATH OF “EICHMANN”

From the time of the German surrender until the summer of 1946
the avengerswere very active, not only in Germany and Austria
and the neighborhood of Tarvisio, but in many other parts of
Europe.
Nathan, a retired senior officer of the Israeli Army, told me:
“The group I was in operated mainly in Yugoslavia and Poland.
In Yugoslavia we killed several Chetniks, notorious leaders of
Fascist gangs, who had murdered a great many Jews. We were
also active in Russia, and some of my group met with misfortune
there. They had been sent to seek out and punish some White
Russians whom we know to be guilty of terrible crimes in the
Ukraine and elsewhere. Several of these men were found and
killed. Others had offered their services to the Soviets, who

looked blindly on their past in return for the information these

criminals supplied. My comrades’ activities did not please the
Russians, and they arrested them. I know that some of them are
still in prison.”
In Germany, the Nakam group was active again. Its members
turned their attention to other POW camps. Wearing American,
British, or Polish uniforms, even “uniforms of armies that have
never existed,” one of them told me, they went to camps and
as

—
showed forged orders for certain prisoners SS officers and Nazi
officials —
to be handed over to them for transfer to another camp
or for work outside. Once they had the prisoners in their power,
away from the camp, they executed them.
Colonel B. told me the following about another group of
avengers:
“In a displaced persons’ camp near Turin, our men had discov-

53
54 THE AVENGERS

ered a Polish doctor wffio was secretly helping SS men by remov-

ing the tattoo marks that each of them had under his armpit to
show blood group.
his The marks were undeniable evidence of SS
membership.
“Every night, a number of SS used to sneak into the doctor’s
hut and he would cauterize the telltale marks. So two of our
group seized the doctor and took him away. I wasn’t there at the
time, but the two told me about it afterward. They asked the
doctor to give them the names of all the men who’d been to him.
The Pole replied haughtily, ‘I won’t tell you anything.’ Then he
shouted, ‘I’ve killed a good many Jews, and I promise you I’ll kill
as many more as I can!’ That was too much. They just fell on

him. It’s one of the very few instances I know,” Colonel B. went
on, “when a Nazi criminal was tortured by avengers. The two
kicked and beat him for hours, then finished him off. You
couldn’t really blame them. After what he had said, their reaction
was understandable. About a dozen Belgian SS, members of the
Walloon division, were found in that camp. They were killed
too, and no one ever missed them.”

Difficulties arose among the Jews themselves in 1946. The lead-

ers of Haganah and other Jewish organizations showed increasing
disapproval of the avengers’ activities.
“We felt that we were being let down,” Moshe, Nakam’s
“head of European operations,” told me. “We’d carried out acts
of revenge in Belgium, Holland, and France. The Gentiles we
were in contact with in those countries understood us better than
some Jews, and certainly better than our brothers in Palestine.
We’d had heartbreaking disputes with people we thought should
have helped us. For instance, Haganah envoys said to us, ‘The
best soldier isn’t the one- who goes over to the attack, but the one
who waits in the trenches for the right moment to come.’
“But we thought we had no time to spend waiting.”
Beni agreed. “One of us went to Palestine to make contact with
the leaders of the Jewishcommunity. Some of them gave us the
moral support we were seeking, and some were even prepared to
give us material aid to carry out our plans. But most of them
 ”
The Death of “ Eichmann *
55

were against us —because their prime objective was the creation

of the State of Israel. That mattered to them more than any-
thing.”
Some particularly spectacular projects met with definite oppo-
sition from Haganah. There was, for instance, a daring plan to
kill the twenty-one accused at the Nuremberg by
Trials, either
poisoning them, by setting off a bomb in the courtroom, or by a
commando raid.
“All these plans were abandoned,” said Jacob. “But I can tell

you this — they weren’t impracticable, and our preparations were

at an advanced stage. Still, we didn’t do anything. We
had no
wish to harm innocent people.”
The Nakam group turned instead to its plan A to exterminate —
several million Germans, by one means or another. Haganah was
well aware that such an operation risked placing the Jews in a
very unfavorable light, and so steps were taken to bring Nakam
to order. Did the group finally defy Haganah and attempt to
carry out plan A?
One thing is certain — two months after the poisoned-bread
affair, the avengers were in Palestine. The members of the group
whom saw would neither confirm nor deny the account I heard
I

of how the activities of Nakam were brought to an end. How-

ever, I believe the following to be essentially true.
“In 1946,” I was told, “clandestine emigration to Palestine was
at its height, and the test of strength against the British and the
Arabs was not far off. Most of the Jews who had taken part in
the acts of vengeance went to Palestine because that was where
they were needed. Some of the Nakam group were for going to
Palestine, but others wanted to carry on with their reprisals. For
some months past, Haganah had been expressing dissatisfaction
with some of the group’s activities. Things came to a climax
when some of its members wanted to proceed with plan A in
defiance of orders from Haganah which then sent a squad to ,

Germany to seize the Nakam rebels and hold them in secret.

Whereupon Nakam’s “head of operations,” then in Paris, sent
orders to the group to cease all activities. The Nakam men were
taken to Italy and held in a small camp that Haganah had
56 THE AVENGERS

at Trecate, near Milajn. From there, they were later taken to

Palestine.
*

“So ended the Nakanfs activities.”

s

Another group of avengers, however, was planning to slaugh-

ter large numbers of Germans. These plans were in their final
stages. This group was different from the others only a minor- —
ity of the members were Jews.
S. Nakdimon, an Israeli journalist, was the first to reveal the

group’s activities. (I have obtained additional information about

them from private sources, whose names I am not allowed to
divulge.)
The first idea of the group was to set fire to several German
towns simultaneously. Then the members examined the possibili-
ties of poisoning the inhabitants of Berlin, Munich (birthplace of
the Nazi Party), Nuremberg, Hamburg, and Frankfurt. The
technical problem was not insoluble. They had only to poison the
towns’ reservoirs. But the great difficulty, again, was how to
avoid poisoning the Allied occupation forces stationed in these
areas and the non-German refugees living in or near the towns.

Nuremberg, the scene of triumphant Nazi rallies in the past,

was chosen for the first attempt. “Some of our group got taken
on as workmen and technicians by the Water Board,” I was told.
“When we had acquired a thorough knowledge of the piped-
water system, we worked out a very complicated plan. At a given
time we would cut off the water supply to the barracks occupied
by Allied troops and to the districts where non-Germans were in
the majority. All the rest of Nuremberg would draw off poi-
soned water, and the only Germans to escape would be drunk-
ards.” r

But first they had to obtain large amounts of poison, and this
was not easy. A scientist living overseas agreed to supply the
avengers with what they needed. The poison was put in an army
knapsack and taken by a soldier returning to Europe from leave.
He was to deliver the knapsack to an address in France.
However, someone must have talked, for when the ship arrived
in French waters her captain received orders to arrest the soldier.
 ”
The Death of “ Eichmann 57

The latter managed to get rid of the knapsack by leaving it in the

care of another soldier. But when this man saw the police coming
aboard he panicked and threw the knapsack out of the porthole
of one of the bathrooms.
The group of avengers did not give up. They carried out a few
experiments with other kinds of poison, and finally found one
that met their requirements. However, they never went through
with their plan.
Various reasons have been given to me. Some people have told
me that the plan was abandoned because, however great the pre-
cautions, it was bound to cause the death of many non-Germans.
Others have said that the plot was discovered by the local author-
ities. A third version is that a Resistance organization heard of the

plan and threatened force if the avengers did not drop it.

“I took part in the tests and experiments with the poison,” a

retired general told me. “I don’t regret it, but I think that
if had come to the test we should never have been
it pitiless

enough to have gone through with the plan.”

Vengeance on Germans was exacted even German in Israel.

colonies had been established in Palestine long before World War
II. One district in Jerusalem still has the name “German colony.”

Other centers in the country had German-sounding names such

as Waldheim, Sarona, and Wilhelma. While Hitler’s power was
increasing in Germany, a very aggressive Nazi movement had
spread among the Germans in Palestine. They formed themselves
into paramilitary units with swastika banners and greeted each
other with the Nazi salute and “Heil Hitler!”
At the outbreak of World War II, the British authorities in
Palestine interned most of these Germans and sent a few to Aus-
tralia. In 1946 the British announced that these Germans would
be set free, to the general stupefaction of the Palestinian Jews, as
one can well imagine.
The Israeli Minister of Labor, Igal Alon, who was a senior
officer in the Palmach brigade in 1946, has written in his mem-
oirs:

“Most of these Germans were members of the Nazi Party, and

a good many had given help to Arab bands in the 1936 and 1938
58 THE AVENGERS

which a number of Jews were killed. Some of the Ger-

riots in
mans were known to have spied on the Allies during the war.
Many of the younger men had been sent back to Germany just
before war broke out, and among these were several who had
held important posts as ‘specialists in Jewish matters’ in the carry-
ing out of the Final Solution.
“The Palmach staff proposed, and the leaders of the Jewish
community agreed, that the release of the Germans interned in
Palestine should be prevented. They decided to show the British
High Commissioner that these Germans could not live in free-
dom in this land. The British tried to fox us by saying that the
Germans would not be given complete freedom, they would
merely be allowed to look after their businesses and farms at
Sarona, Wilhelma, Waldheim, and Bethlehem, under police
—
guard which was really to protect the Germans from our ven-
geance.
“In spite of these precautions we were able to carry out our
August 1946, a Palmach detachment shot and killed
plan. In early
one of the most active Nazis, an industrialist named Wagner,
without harming any of his British guards. On September 17, a
group from the first Palmach battalion killed a few Nazis who
were returning to their businesses in Haifa accompanied by Arab

“The British took the hint. All they had to do next was to
expel the Germans from Palestine, confiscate their property, and
hand it over to Jews who had survived the death camps.”

Most of the avengers, including those from the Jewish Brigade,

had gone to Palestine by the end of 1947. But the hunt for Nazi
criminals still continued sporadically, carried on by individuals or
isolated groups after big game.
A great proportion of prominent Nazis had escaped retribu-
tion. They had gone into hiding, and were very well hidden
indeed.
remember one occasion when we were very excited,” Colo-
“I
nel B. said to me. “A group of Jews on their way to Palestine,
escorted by some Haganah envoys, captured a Nazi in Rome, just
 ”
The Death of “ Eichmann 59

before he took ship for South America. They interrogated him at

length, then decided to execute him. ‘You can kill me,’ said the
man, ‘but there’s someone far more important here in Rome;
he’s hiding in the Monteverde district. Someone who was very
close to Hitler.’ Just before he was killed, he made the important
revelation. ‘The man I mean,’ he said, ‘is Martin Bormann. But
you’ll never know his address.’ And he died taking the secret
with him.
“We were sure that Bormann was in Rome in 1946 and 1947,
but we were never able to get on his track.”
Although Hitler’s deputy escaped them, they thought they had
—
found another important criminal Adolf Eichmann.
This SS Standarten-Fuehrer, a meddling, obedient, and cunning
Nazi and a chief executant of the Final Solution, had always
managed to remain in the background. He wanted to remain
completely unknown, and almost succeeded. Very few photos of
him existed and very little information about his appearance was
available. The Nuremberg Trials went on for months before his
name was even mentioned. He had divorced his wife Vera and
abandoned her and their three children. His friends thought he
was dead. But in fact, unknown to anyone at the time, he was
laying low under a false name in a POW
camp in the American
zone of Germany.
Eichmann’s name was first mentioned on January 3, 1946, at
Nuremberg, when a Nazi criminal, Dieter Wisliceny, was on trial
for crimes against the Jews. In his defense, he quoted Goering
as saying, “Wisliceny is only a little pig who looks like a big pig
because Eichmann isn’t here.”
But where was Eichmann? One of the small groups of avengers
still in Europe decided to make it their business to find him. The

members had belonged to the Deutsche Abteilung or to Nakam ,

and the leader was a prominent Palestinian fighter, whom we will

call Reuven.

With the help of agents of Jewish organizations, Reuven dis-

covered the addresses of members of Eichmann’s family. His
parents and brothers and sisters were living in Linz, Austria,
where his father had an electrician shop. His ex-wife and her
6o THE AVENGERS

children were living at Bad-Aussee. All attempts to obtain infor-

mation about Eichmann from his family failed, so the avengers
kept watch over the movements, hoping to be led to Eichmann.
After several weeks they discovered that one of Eichmann’s
brothers went once a fortnight to a small village between Linz
and Salzburg. He always took a bag of food with him and re-
turned without it. Moreover, Eichmann’s ex-wife, Vera, also
went regularly to the same village.
Two members of the group followed Eichmann’s brother on
one of his trips, and he led them to a small house which belonged
to a doctor. A few hours later, Vera arrived at the house. The
two Jews remained on watch, and when darkness fell they saw
the man and woman slip out of the house together. The watchers
followed them out of the village and up a hill to a chalet on the
edge of a pine wood. After a time, they came out of the chalet
and made their way back to the doctor’s house. The following
day they left the village separately.
Some of the avengers went to stay in the village, passing them-
Germans. They kept the mysterious chalet on the hill
selves off as
under constant observation, and tried discreetly to find out about
it from the villagers. They learned that four men lived in the

chalet, but no one in the village would admit to knowing any-

thing about them. The watchers discovered that the four occu-
pants went out only at night, but never together. The chalet was
guarded by three watchdogs. Only one other person visited the
chalet apart from Eichmann’s brother and ex-wife —
a man who
arrived every evening after dark and apparently brought supplies
of food.
There seemed no doubt that one of the four occupants was
Adolf Eichmann.
The avengers gathered all the information they could, in
Vienna and Linz, about the Nazi’s appearance. They obtained a
fairly good description of him and even precise data on his teeth.
They were unable to get a photograph but the detailed descrip-
tion they had seemed quite adequate.
After another month observing the chalet, they felt sure that
they knew which of the four men was Eichmann. His height,
bearing, and features matched the description they had. He was
 ”
The Death of “ Eichmann 6

the only one of the four who

always took two of the dogs with
him on his nightly walks. The next move was to seize him. His
next walk would be his last.
Four men of the group, dressed in British Army uniforms,
drove up the hill towards the chalet in a jeep. They parked their
vehicle under some trees and crept forward.
It had been dark for a long time when the men in ambush saw

the door of the chalet open. The silhouette of a tall, thin man
appeared in the lighted doorway. The two dogs with him began
to bark. There was little difficulty dealing with them. One of the
four Jews had fought with Tito’s partisans in Yugoslavia and
knew how to draw off the dogs. He imitated their barking, and
when the dogs drew near he threw them some pieces of poisoned
meat. So much for the dogs. Eichmann’s turn soon followed.
They hit him on the back of the head with a revolver butt as he
walked through the dark woods. The men picked him up and ran
with him to their jeep, then drove a few miles to where two
other members of were waiting in the woods. When
the group
the jeep stopped, the dazed German opened his eyes. The
avengers dragged him towards the wood, where Reuven said to
him, “We are Jews, Eichmann.” At this, their prisoner started to
laugh, a jeering though nervous laugh. “We’ve got a big score to
settle with you,” Reuven went on. “You know what you did to

the Jewish people. . .

.”

The German did not seem at all He drew

scared. himself up
and said arrogantly, do “You can’t anything to me
—
A burst from a Sten cut him short. One of the avengers bent
down and pried open the man’s mouth to look at his teeth. There
was no doubt in the men’s minds that they had killed Eichmann.

So they thought. And they continued to think so for fourteen

years, until May i960, when Israeli secret agents kidnapped the
real Eichmann in Argentina.
In reading the report of an Israeli agent in Argentina, dated
1956, stating that he had identified Eichmann in South America, I

came across this note:

“I gave this news to several friends in Israel and they replied,
‘Reuven is sure that Eichmann was killed by avengers soon after
6i THE AVENGERS

the war. The teeth of the man they shot were identical with the
”
description given of Eichmann’s.’
This put Reuven’s track, the man who seemed to know
me on
so much. I found him working at a kibbutz in Galilee. He was
wearing jeans and had his cap pulled down over his blue eyes. He
held out a horny hand, from driving a tractor.
stiff

“Yes,” he said, “we were mistaken. I can’t tell you everything

about that business because I might endanger the lives of those
who are still carrying on the work of vengeance. . . .

One wonders who the bogus Eichmann was. Reuven said that
he was certainly a Nazi, but not particularly important. It is
unlikely that more will ever be known.
 «

THE BLACK BOOK

When Hitler came to power in 1933, Henyek Diamant was

eleven and living in Katowice, Poland, in a house just opposite
the German consulate.
“So you see, I had the swastika under my eyes right from
boyhood.”
He was up to the same tricks as other Jewish boys his age.
Under cover of darkness he drew big David on the
Stars of
consulate walls; he tore the swastika pennant from the consul’s
car; he threw into his garden some pictures of the fight between
Joe Louis and Max Schmeling, that ended with the American
Negro knocking out the German. Henyek joined the Zionist
youth organization and took part in demonstrations calling on
Jews not to go to theaters where German films were being
shown. Toward the end of 1938, after the “Night of the Broken
Glass,” he and his friends helped Jews who had been expelled
from Germany to settle in Poland. He was in Warsaw when the
German Army invaded Poland, and he went with his parents to
Sosnowitz.
The measures against the Jews increased in ferocity through-
out 1940 and 1941. In May 1942, after the Wannsee Conference
which adopted the Final Solution, there began the massive and
systematic deportation of the Polish Jews to the death camps. In
1943 the Jews of Sosnowitz were herded into cattle trucks for
the journey to Auschwitz. Some managed to escape, chiefly ear-
nest youths who had little belief that they would last long but
who were determined to put up a fight against the Germans, if
only to preserve their honor.
“I escaped from the ghetto wearing my best suit and carrying a
bunch of red roses,” Henyek told me many years later in Israel.

63
 —
64 THE AVENGERS

“And there I was, pretending to be on the wedding,way to a

while my family were going to their death. I was surrounded by
a hostile population. I wanted to become a fighter, but in order to
do that I had to go on living. So it was essential that I should be
taken for a Gentile.”

Henyek grew moustache and bleached his hair and eyebrows.

a
He bought a Tirolean hat, and with his blue eyes was able to pass
himself off as the son of a gypsy.
He moved about a lot in the following months. He kept chang-
ing his identity, his address, and his companions, going from one
ghetto and one Resistance group to another. Young Diamant be-
came one of those daring Jewish fighters who took up arms not
only against the Germans but also against the fierce anti-Semitism
of the local populations. These men, who suffered terrible losses
in the end, developed an amazing “sixth sense” which enabled
them to survive for a long time in incredible conditions. Diamant
was certainly one of the cleverest of them all. His coolness, cun-
ning, and gumption soon earned him the nickname “Manos” (the
hand). He was everywhere, but always elusive.
In 1943 he was in Hungary. He went to a hospital and intro- —
duced himself as Dr. Ulensky. He had no medical diplomas, but
he had sufficient assurance to be taken at his word. They gave
him corpses to dissect. He cut and carved for several months
before the Germans grew suspicious. By then he was far away.
He Hungary and Poland, organizing
crossed attacks against the
Gestapo and on German troops.
Hehad the reputation of being fearless and also very lucky
all with good reason. One day a friend advised him to fit a plastic

sheath over his penis to hide the fact that he had been circum-
cised. Shortly after, he was arrested in the street by a patrol.
German “experts” examined him closely and concluded he was a
true Aryan!
was not the only occasion when Diamant came close to
It

disaster. He was arrested and questioned several times, but always

evaded detection. After being Dr. Ulensky he became Dr. Yanov-
ski, then Walter or Heinrich. He walked through every trap set

for him. Great courage, intelligence, and plenty of nerve —that

was Henyek Diamant as a Resistance leader.
The Black Book 65

The net began to close round him, and in October 1943 he laid
low for a time in a mountain village in Poland. He said he was a
workman named Stashek on holiday. His landlady, who
thought
he was an Aryan, smilingly said to him one evening, “Mr.
Stashek, I wonder if you’d mind playing the Jew? My little boy
won’t go to sleep.”
So “Stashek” went up to the bedroom and stood behind the
door, and when the mother said to her child, “If you don’t go to
sleep, the Jew will come for you!” he howled and growled.
—
That is how the Polish peasants thought of a Jew as a wolf.
In August 1944, Diamant was organizing the escape of many
Jews from Hungary into Romania, where the Final Solution was
no longer being applied. He directed a network of frontier guides
from Novgorod, in Transylvania. The end of the war found him
in Budapest. He had come through unscathed, except for the loss
of the lobe of his left ear. That bullet had almost got him, but his
lucky star was with him, as always.

In the course of his innumerable clandestine activities, Diamant

got to know who,
three other Jewish resistants like him, later
became avengers. They were Alex Gatmon, Emil Brik, and a girl
called Dafna.
Alex Gatmon, born was thirteen when war broke
in Silesia,
out. He fled from his ghetto, as Diamant had, and during the war
years was in Poland, Slovakia, and Hungary. He was still only a
child when he exchanged his watch for his first revolver. When
he was sixteen he took part in several raids at Mohatch, in Poland,
to seize arms for partisan groups. The last raid was unsuccessful
and almost cost him his life. He escaped on a bicycle with the
police close on his track. He was pedaling for his life when he
—
saw a signpost “Auschwitz 32 kilometers.”
He was so frightened that he turned back at once. A little later
he was stopped by a Pole, who let him go in return for his

Emil Brik belonged to a group of partisans operating in the

Tarnov area. A day came when the Germans made a surprise
attack that almost wiped them out. Brik, whose daring soon be-
came legendary, was one of the few survivors. He then joined a
 %
66 THE AVENGERS

group in Hungary, of which Alex Gatmon was a member. The

two youngsters took part in many Resistance activities together.
Then and they were captured along with
their luck turned,
Dafna and accused of the murder of a Gestapo informer, who
had in fact been shot by their group.
The two young men were sentenced to death and hanged. And
when I met Alex Gatmon in Israel he told me all about his
execution —something a hanged man is not usually able to do.
had refused to confess to the killing and to give the names of
“I
other members of the group,” Alex Gatmon told me. “The day I
was to die, I was led out of my cell and taken to the gallows.
Everyone was there — soldiers, a judge representing the Minister
of Justice, a priest. The sentence was read out, and I was placed
under the noose. Then an officer came up to me and said, ‘If you
confess and give the names of the other terrorists, your life will
be spared.’ I still refused, and the rope was put round my neck.
The trap opened, I choked and everything went black.
“I opened my eyes some hours later to find myself in the
prison infirmary. I learned that the whole scene had been staged
with the object of getting information from me. If I had told all I
knew, they’d have hanged me properly. But as I’d not said any-
thing, they just left me hanging for a few seconds. I heard later
that Emil Brik had been given the same treatment.”
The two were interrogated again, but they still refused to talk
—
and so their execution a real one this time was fixed for No- —
vember 30, 1944.
In the meantime, the Resistance in Budapest was planning to
rescue Alex, Emil, and Dafna. Some partisans were going to dress
as SS officers, drive up to the prison Mercedes, and present
in a
written orders —forged of course— to hand over the three prison-
ers. The three prisoners were informed of the plan.
“I had a cellmate, a young man who said he belonged to the
Hungarian Resistance and had been sentenced to death,” Alex
told me. “He knew about the plan and wished me good luck. On
the day the attempt to rescue us was to be made, he was taken
out of the cell. That evening the prison guard was increased, and
projectors were placed to throw strong lights on my cell and on
those of Emil and Dafna.
The Black Book 67

“I suspected at once that we had been betrayed. And so we

had, for when Mercedes with my friends in it drove into the
the
prison courtyard it was immediately fired upon. By some miracle,
they managed to turn the car round and get away in the dark.
“At roll call next morning I saw my cellmate who had said he
was in the Resistance. He was standing with the jailers and wear-
ing the uniform of the Hungarian Fascist Party. He had turned
us in. All hope of escape was lost.”
But fate sometimes plays tricks. On the morning of November
29, the day before Alex and Emil were to be hanged, Russian
soldiers broke into the prison and freed the prisoners.

A month later, in the small town of Kanija, in Hungary, four

Red Army were seen approaching one of the houses.
soldiers
Two of them, big, burly men in tight-fitting uniforms, walked
straight into the house. They were none other than the two
condemned partisans, Gatmon and Brik. Accompanied by two
Russian sergeants, they had come to punish the man who had
betrayed them. He was not in the house. They found him at the
reception room of the town hall. He had just gotten married, and
was receiving guests.
“We walked slowly, very slowly, down the large room, be-
tween two rows of men, women, and children, all shaking with
fright,” Alex told me. “Emil and I were in front, the two Rus-
sians following. A great silence had fallen, and I seemed to be
walking in a dream.
“We stopped in front of the bridegroom. He was trembling,
his face was white. The bride threw herself at our feet, begging
us to spare him. We pushed her aside.
“This was the day of reckoning. The moment had come to
take our revenge. That was why we were there. Until then, our
one thought had been to shoot him like a dog. But we remem-
bered how we had vowed to devote our lives to vengeance but —
an honorable vengeance, the vengeance of our race and not per-
sonal revenge. Our task was not to wipe out grudges or pay off
old scores. Wewanted to keep our hands clean.
“We said as much to this traitor. He listened without under-
standing or believing a word. It was beyond his understanding
68 THE AVENGERS

that we were him now that we had found him.

not going to kill

But then it dawned on him that we were not going to take our
revenge, that he was not going to die. There was a freshly roasted
suckling pig on the table, the main course of the wedding break-
fast. He offered it to us, out of gratitude, in exchange for his life.

A suckling pig for a man’s life! We could see that he had not
understood. We turned on our heels and left him.”
The idea of vengeance came to the Jews at the end of the war,
but one of them had already set an example of what true, untar-
nished vengeance should be. His name was Hayim Tenenwurtzel.
Alex Gatmon told me his story.
“The Final Solution was at its height, Jews were being rounded
up all over Europe, when one day our Resistance group received
a letter from a friend. ‘I’m in Slovakia, at Jelina,’ he wrote. ‘The
Jews here aren’t persecuted at all, it’s wonderful.’
“Of course, we didn’t believe it. Slovakia was a protectorate of
the Reich, and the man at its head, Cardinal Tisso, based his policy
on complete collaboration with the Nazis. It seemed impossible
for Jews to be living freely and safely in Slovakia. However, we
sent a girl from our group to see what was going on there. A few
weeks later we had a postcard from her. ‘Come along, it’s a
paradise on earth,’ she wrote.
“Two men of the group were chosen to go and report on the
situation —
Hayim Tenenwurtzel and myself. And as soon as we
crossed the frontier into Slovakia we indeed found a paradise.
Three Jews with splendid cars were waiting for us. They were
well dressed and were not wearing yellow stars. Like 90 per cent
of the Jews in Slovakia, they were considered ‘necessary to the
State’ and no one molested them. In the town, we met the leaders
of the Jewish community of the region and a Roman Catholic
priest who represented the government. We saw for ourselves
that the Jews were left in peace by the Germans, at that time.
Our friends lent us a large apartment and advised us to send for
our comrades still in Hungary and Poland.
“It was all a kind of dream to us. We were invited out to tea,
the daughter of the house played the piano, we chatted and ate
The Black Book 69

pastries and danced a little —while, not so many miles away, Jews
were being sent to concentration camps every day.
“Heated discussions often took place among the upper-class
Jews of Slovakia on the subject of Zionism and emigration to
Palestine. Hayim and I were not interested in Palestine, because
we believed that the chief task after the war would be to exact
vengeance. Hayim was more determined than anyone about this.
So much so that he went off, back into Poland, to Katowice
back into the hell.
“Think of the enormous risks he was taking. We others were
never in any great danger when exacting vengeance after the
war. But when Hayim decided, with the war still on, to return to
Poland to carry out acts of vengeance, he knew he was going to
his death.
“The man we wanted Katowice was Drayer, the head
to kill at
of the Gestapo and in charge of deportations. Hayim and I tossed
to see which of us was to carry out the deed, and the lot fell to
me. But Hayim said, ‘That’s all very well, but you’re only six-
teen. You stay here. I’ll go and avenge all the dead of our town.
”
I’ll get Drayer.’
Hayim Tenenwurtzel was shot to death while defending him-
self as he got out of the train at He
had not carried out
Katowice.
his mission, he had not killed Drayer, but his sacrifice had mean-
ing. His dignity and courage remains an example to all free men
determined to stay free.

After being freed from prison, Alex Gatmon, Emil Brik, and
Dafna enlisted in the Russian Army. Like many other Jews, they
asked to be sent to the front, but were refused. Instead they were
employed in the rear as translators, interpreters, or Intelligence
agents, which proved of great help to them in carrying out the
mission they had given themselves.
On one occasion, however, they almost found themselves in
serious trouble.
“It wasDecember 1944,” said Emil Brik, “after Hungary
in
had been occupied by the Russians. We captured two SS whose
crimes were well known in the region, and we handed them over
7°
THE AVENGERS

to the Russians.But they weren’t interested in the two criminals

and set them free. We didn’t approve at all. So we followed the
two SS and shot them dead in the street.
“The Russians were furious, and we barely escaped court-
martial.
“When we where we knew SS or Hun-
arrived in a village
garian Fascists were hiding, we used to go round with loudspeak-
ers and order all the inhabitants between the ages of sixteen and
fifty, men and women, to assemble on the village square, taking

three days’ food with them, as the Russian Army was requisition-
—
ing them for work which was true, incidentally.
“As soon as they had all gathered on the square, our group
hurried to the addresses that we had on our list, those where
Fascists or Nazis were hiding. We surrounded the house, watch-
ing every window. Then one of us knocked on the front door,
and always the man we were looking for tried to escape by the
back door. And he was shot by our men who were posted on that
side of the house.”
The Russians were about to send some troops to Vladivostok,
under an agreement with the United States, and Alex, Emil, and
Dafna feared they might be included. They decided that their
duty was elsewhere. Emil Brik went to Palestine, entering the
country through the well-organized clandestine immigration chan-
nels. During the Israeli War of Independence against the Arabs

he achieved glory and was awarded the highest military distinc-

tion, becoming one of the “Twelve Fleroes of Israel.” Gatmon
and Dafna went to Vienna, where “Manos” Diamant had pre-
ceded them. There they met one of the men who played a great
part in the identification of Nazi criminals and the hunt for them.
He was a journalist, a correspondent of several British and Amer-
ican papers, but also an officer in the Haganah secret service and
head of the clandestine organization that sent Jews from Europe
to Palestine. His name was Arthur Pfer.

After the Anschluss, Arthur Pier had left Vienna —where he

was born in 1921 — and
gone to Greece. From there he had
reached Palestine and joined a kibbutz. But he had not stayed
with it for very long.
The Black Book 7 1

In 1941 he was working for the organization that brought Jews

out of Europe and smuggled them into Palestine. In 1944 he had a
small office at Haifa, near the port, where he collected the testi-
mony and stories of hundreds of Jews who had succeeded in
escaping from Europe. He thus put together the full account of
the mass slaughter and was the first to make a detailed report on
the elimination of many Jewish centers of population in Europe.
He was also the first to draw up a list of Nazi criminals by order
of importance.
All the information he gathered was put in a black book,
stamped “oss top secret.” It later became a basic reference
book of the American Secret Service when carrying out the pol-
icy of denazification in Germany.
—
In September 1945, Arthur Pier who had changed his name to
—
Asher Ben Natan while in Palestine was sent to Europe on a
highly secret mission. His suitcase had a false bottom to hold a
microfilmed copy of the black book and a large supply of gold
sovereigns. The gold was intended to finance the clandestine
emigration of Jews to Palestine. The microfilm was to be the
instrument of vengeance.
Arthur arrived Vienna on November 1, 1945, and began
in
work at No. 2 Frankgasse, the undercover headquarters of the
Jewish emigration organization. He got in touch with several
avengers. In addition to “Manos” Diamant and Alex Gatmon, he
met Tuviah Friedman, who had been an officer in Polish Intelli-
gence.
Arthur stayed two years in Vienna and helped the Americans
capture a number of wanted Nazis. But in the early days his
offices at No. 2 Frankgasse were suspected of being a center for
spies, of which there were many in Vienna at that time. The

Americans raided the place and found the microfilm of the black
book. Arthur Pier was in danger of arrest, but an exchange of
cables among Vienna, Washington, and Haifa put matters right.
From then on Arthur Pier and the American security services
cooperated wholeheartedly.
Pier set up a Documentation Center which gathered informa-
tion about Nazi criminals and was officially attached to the As-
sociation of Jewish Students. The president of this Association
72
THE AVENGERS

was Alex Gatmon, who had enrolled at Vienna University. Its

most active members were “Manos” Diamant, Dr. Arnold
Shmorak, Tuviah Friedman, and Ruth Hirschler, a law student.
Gatmon was in charge of Section A of the Documentation
Center. The object of this Section was to keep a record of the
Nazi criminals tried by the Allies at Nuremberg and elsewhere,
and given only prison sentences.
“The chief victims of those men, the Jews, were not repre-
sented at their trials,” Gatmon said. “Our idea was to wait for the
criminals who
had not been sentenced to death to be released
from prison, then seize them and put them on trial a second time,
with Jews as judges. We were seriously preparing for this task, in
fact that was why I had enrolled at the Faculty of Law.”
Gatmon, Diamant, and others went man-hunting, drawing
their information from the testimonies given by the thousands of
Jews who passed through Vienna on their way to Palestine. But
Arthur Pier opposed their taking the law into their own hands.
“Only the representatives of the law and properly appointed
judges have the right to punish criminals,” he told them. “Our
role is to find the wanted Nazis and then have them arrested by
the Allies. Acts of personal revenge are harmful to our essential
aim of sending as many Jews as possible to Palestine.”
Several dozen SS officers, torturers, and murderers, were thus
handed over to the Russian, Polish, or Czech authorities, rather
than to the British or American, who were often more lenient.
“At that time,” said Diamant, “the Viennese police were under
Communist influence. They thought all the information we gave
them sound, and arrested the guilty men at once. Some of those
arrested were transferred to Poland or to other East European
countries, and were hanged.”
Tuviah Friedman, one of the most astute of the Vienna group
of avengers, was responsible for the capture of the men who had
ordered the massacres of the Jewish inhabitants of Radom
(Poland), Borislav (Russia), Drohobycz, and other towns.
All these criminals were extradited, judged, and executed.
“Manos” Diamant succeeded in tracking down two notorious
—
Nazi criminals SS Sturmbann-Fuehrer Anton Burger, who had
been the camp commandant at Theresienstadt, and Victor
The Black Book 73

Nageler, one of the leaders of the “actions” against the Jews in

Slovakia.
“I discovered Burger in a POW camp at Glasenback, not far
from Innsbruck,” said Diamant. “When I saw him, he was about
to be released and was getting his belongings together. I recog-
nized him from a photograph in which he appeared with some
other SS officers. Burger was put in prison, then transferred to
Slovakia, sentenced to death, and hanged.
“As for Nageler, it was quite by luck that I came across him.
He was in prison at Urfach. He had been denounced by some
neighbors, but no one knew who he really was. But I identified
him, again from a photograph. He was hanged by the Czechs.”
“We got on the track of another major criminal,” Arthur Pier
told me. “He was Alois Brunner, Eichmann’s right-hand man. But
he managed to escape from the American-run POWcamp where
he was hiding under a false name.”
Despite the strict instructions given by Arthur Pier, and un-
known to him at the time, some of the group did carry out acts
of vengeance.
Arie, one of the Vienna group, told me when I interviewed
him in Israel:
“I killed four Nazi criminals. At Judenburg, near Graz, in
Austria, there was a displaced persons camp in which a large
number of Jews were living. Some of them had come from
Yugoslavia. I was on good terms with the British and Americans
in charge of the camp, and from them I learned that a Nazi
criminal by the name of Alois Gawenda was hiding in the dis-
trict. I questioned some of the Jews in the camp, to try and find

out more about this Gawenda. Those from Yugoslavia remem-

bered him only too well. Gawenda had been a member of one of
Ante Pavelic’s infamous gangs in the Croatian nationalist move-
ment, Ustasa. He
had operated in Zagreb for a time. There, he
had ‘questioned’ the Jewish and Communist prisoners with all the
cruel refinements that his sadistic mind could conceive. The Jews
—
were then herded together, out in the open country for concen-
tration camps were rare in some regions of Yugoslavia before —
being packed off to the death camps. Gawenda was always
present on such occasions. Dozens of people testified that they
 —
74 THE AVENGERS

had seen him shoot children and snatch babies from their moth-
ers’ arms and hurl them on the ground to crack their heads

open.
“When the tide began to change, Gawenda disappeared. He
had crossed the frontier and got a job with a traveling fair. And
now the fair had set up its stalls and sideshows in the neighbor-
hood of Judenburg. Gawenda’s job was in line with his talents
he was in charge of a shooting gallery.
“Four of us went to the fairground three Jews from Yugo- —
slavia and myself. Some of the Allied soldiers guarding the DP
camp had lent us guns. It was about ten in the morning when we
arrived at the shooting gallery. There was no one about but
Gawenda. We asked if we could try our hands at shooting. He
handed us rifles and we fired at the dummies as they slid past at
the back of the stand. Then two of us went to keep watch, and I
said to Gawenda, ‘I know who you are. You were with the
Ustasa at Zagreb, and you massacred hundreds of innocent
people.’
“He realized he was trapped, and like so many others he tried
to gain time with the usual excuse, ‘It wasn’t my fault — I was
only carrying out orders. . .
.’

“We shot him with his own rifles and with our guns. He col-
lapsed and died in his shooting gallery.
“He was the first. The second was killed at Bad Aussee, the
town where Eichmann’s divorced wife was living with their chil-
dren. I had gone there, like many others, in the hope of finding a
clue. was making out that I had been a
I member of the SS
Walloon Division.
“Quite by chance, I became acquainted with an antique dealer
named Gunther Halle. He took a liking to me and confided that
most of the objects he had for sale had been stolen from the
homes of Jews. He went on to boast of having taken part in the
suppression of the rising of the Warsaw ghetto, and he described
in great detail how he had hunted down the last few Jews and
killed them. I listened without flinching, only by making great
efforts to hide my emotions.
“One few comrades and I went to this man’s house and
night, a
captured him. We told him who we were and that he was about
The Black Book 75

to die. Then we took him to the Alt Aussee, the large lake just
outside the town. We bound
him hand and foot, gagged him, tied
a large stone to him, then threw him alive into the lake. So far as I
know, none of his family ever learned what had happened to
him.
“The third killing was more a case of personal revenge and, I
don’t mind admitting, it made me feel quite ill at ease. This is
what happened. Not far from the Documentation Center in
Vienna was a bakery that had belonged to a Jew before the war.
The owner had been denounced by a Nazi and was deported
with all his family. Only one son survived, and when he got back
to Vienna after the war he found that the shop was in the hands
of the Nazi who had denounced his father.
“We lay in wait for the man in a vacant area. Our intention
was to beat him up with clubs and iron bars, but not to kill him.
Unfortunately, he recognized the baker’s son and threatened to
tell the police, so we had
do him in.
to
“The fourth execution took place in the pretty but disquieting
setting of the Wienerwald, the forest outside Vienna. Some of
the Jewish refugees who came to the Documentation Center, and
others who were being given shelter at the Rothschild Hospital,
dealt in the black market, in order to live. There was a man who
often came to see them about these shady affairs, and one of the
refugees suddenly remembered where he had come across him
before. His name was Josef Belki and he had murdered a number
of Jews in Czestochowa, Poland.
“When the Germans occupied that town they took over the
munitions factory, and one of the men they put in charge of it
was this Josef Belki. The working people in some of the factory
shops were supplied with special gloves and masks as protection
against acids. But when Jews were brought in as slave labor,
including women and children, Belki gave orders not to issue
them gloves or masks. He took great delight in seeing them
writhe in pain after handling acids. And when they asked to see a

doctor, well, Belki just killed them.

“He was man who would do anything for money. Under the
a
pretext of concluding a deal with him, we took him out to the
forest one dark night. And there, by the light of torches, we read
76 THE AVENGERS

out the charges against him. He was put on trial then and there,
sentenced to death, and strangled with a silk stocking. We buried
the body under the trees.
“No, I don’t feel any remorse. Who would?”
Vengeance was a secondary aim of Arthur Pier and Docu- his

mentation Center, but there was one man they badly wanted to
find —Adolf Eichmann.
“Eichmann is the most cunning, the most devilish, and danger-
ous of all the Nazi leaders,” Arthur said to Tuviah Friedman one
day. “He was the chief assassin. He remained in the background,
but was he who planned and organized the extermination of the
it

Jews. Never forget the name of Adolf Eichmann.

“Hitler’s been burned to ashes, Himmler committed suicide,
Kaltenbrunner is among those on trial at Nuremberg and stands a
good chance of being hanged, Heydrich was bumped off by the
Czechs in 1942. So that leaves three super-assassins still alive and
free —
Martin Bormann, Hitler’s deputy as leader of the Nazi
Party; Heinrich Mueller, the head of the Gestapo; and Adolf
Eichmann.”
Arthur took from his pocket a small notebook that he always
had on him. It was filled with the names of 600 Nazis, the chief
oppressors of the Jewish people.
“You see this name,” he said to Friedman, pointing to that of
Eichmann. “I want to be able to put a line through it.”
Dieter Wisliceny, the war criminal who brought up the name
Adolf Eichmann at the Nuremberg Trials, provided some unex-
pected assistance in the task of finding Eichmann. Wisliceny had
been sentenced to death by a military tribunal. Gideon Rufer,
who had been Arthur Pier’s superior in Palestine when the latter
was compiling the black book, went to visit Wisliceny in his cell,
and the German offered his services in the hope of getting his
sentence commuted.
“But we’ve other plans for you,” said Rufer.
“What plans?” asked Wisliceny, hope shining in his eyes.
Rufer’s reply was to trace a noose in the air and point to the
ceiling.
Wisliceny was hanged by the Czechs. But some time before,
The Black Book 77

while in the death cell at Bratislava, he saw Arthur Pier and gave
him the names of two of Eichmann’s —
Hungarian,
mistresses a
Margit Kutschera, and an Austrian, Maria Masenbacher.
Pier at once realized the possibilities this information offered
for overcoming a major difficulty confronting every security
service looking for Eichmann, Allied and Jewish alike —the lack
of a photograph. One or the other of the two women probably
had kept photograph of her lover.
a
The arrest by the Vienna police of Josef Weisel, an ex-
chauffeur of Eichmann’s, was very timely; he gave the address of
Maria Masenbacher. Pier decided to send his best agent, “Manos”
—
Diamant, to make inquiries with his pleasant face and assured
manner, “Manos” knew how to please women. So a few days
later, a man calling himself Heinrich van Diamant and pretending

to be a Dutch SS on the run knocked at the door of No. 20

Harbachsiedlung in Urfahr. A woman whose beauty was begin-
ning to fade opened it and said she was Frau Masenbacher.
In his book on the capture of Eichmann, the Israeli writer
Moshe Pearlman gives the story that Diamant told the woman:
“
‘Manos’ told Frau Masenbacher that Eichmann was a friend
of his family and had often spoken of her. Eichmann had left
some things of value with his family, and as he did not know
where to return them, he had come to see her in the hope that she
would be able to help him.”*
Frau Masenbacher showed some interest but did not divulge
any information about Eichmann. However, she did not seem
distrustful, and as she was living alone —
having divorced her hus-
—
band, she said, who was fifteen years her elder she encouraged
Diamant to return. They became friendly, and one afternoon a
few weeks later they were sitting in her living room when she
started to show him her photograph album and to talk about old
times.
“Doesn’t my
Adolf look nice in this photo?” she asked, coming
to a page with only one photograph on it.
Diamant stared admiringly and made appropriate remarks. It
had been taken some time in 1935.

* La Longue Chasse, by Moshe Pearlman. Editions France-Empire, Paris,

1961.
78 THE AVENGERS

Diamant telephoned the news to Arthur Pier as soon as he left

the house. A few days later, police arrived at the house with a
search warrant signed by an inspector in Vienna who was a
friend of Arthur Pier. They said they had information against
Frau Masenbacher for dealing in forged ration cards. Diamant
was with the police, and during the search he seized the photo-
graph album and tore out the page holding Eichmann’s photo-
graph.
Copies of it were sent to all the Allied security services, police
forces, and groups of avengers. A copy reached Reuven a week
after he and his group had executed the man they believed to be
Eichmann. The photograph from which the copy was taken was
at least ten years old. Reuven and his men studied it closely, but
saw nothing to make them suspect that they had made a mistake.
 *

7
*

THE LAST OF THE AVENGERS

Alex Gatmon grew tired of filling out forms and preparing

reports. The work of the Documentation Center had become
more and more administrative, and Alex was not made for office
work.
In1947 he left for Palestine and joined Irgun one of the ,

clandestine organizations in arms against the British. It was not

long before “Manos” Diamant showed similar signs of impa-
tience. After obtaining the photograph of Eichmann, he began a
plan to kidnap Eichmann’s children as a means of forcing the
Nazi to give himself up. Others before Diamant had had the same
idea. Arthur Pier opposed the plan, and Diamant dropped it. In
any case, it would have served no useful purpose; Eichmann was
far away, had nothing to do with his family, and his ex-wife truly
had no idea of what had become of him, though the Jews could
not be sure of this at the time.
“Do you know the real reason for Gatmon leaving us?”
“Manos” asked Friedman one day, in an outburst. “Because he
couldn’t stand the methods of Haganah any longer. He’s gone
and joined Irgun ,
me, he wants action not yap-yap-yap.”
he’s like
In November 1947 the General Assembly of the United Na-
tions approved the creation of a Jewish State. The Arab countries
protested, and war became imminent in Palestine. Arthur Pier
was recalled, and as his successor at the head of the Documentation
Center he chose Tuviah Friedman. When the Israeli- Arab war
broke out in 1948, Friedman was one of the last of the Jewish
avengers still in Europe.
Friedman was born in Radom, Poland,
During the
in 1922.
German occupation, all of his family except for one sister were
sent to Treblinka, to their deaths. Friedman, arrested on several

79
8o THE AVENGERS

occasions, by some miracle escaped deportation. In June 1944 he

left Radom to try to reach the Russian lines, hiding in the
forests. Then he joined a group of partisans until the Russians
arrived, along with the Polish Red Army. He enlisted in the latter
under the name of Tadek Jasinski. He was
soon given the rank of
lieutenant in the security forces and sent to Danzig, which had
just been liberated, to round up the local Nazis. He could not
forget the massacre of his family; he acquired a reputation for
being the most pitiless and cruel of those who interrogated cap-
tured Nazis.
His first success as an avenger was due to a lucky chance. He
was walking along a street in Vienna when an old friend from
Radom, Heinrich Rakosz, came hurrying up to him in great
excitement.
“You remember Buchmayer, the SS who killed such a lot of
—
Jews at Radom? He’s living in Vienna he’s got a shop not far
from here.”
Friedman went at once to the address, only to find that
Buchmayer had just been sent to a POW
camp near Salzburg, in
the American zone. Friedman obtained a permit and went to the
camp. Disguised as a German POW, he mixed with the prisoners
and finally came upon Buchmayer. It was the man he was looking
for, the man who had terrorized the Jews at Radom. Friedman

notified the camp commandant and sent for Buchmayer’s accuser,

who confronted the SS. He denied everything at first, but finally
admitted his crimes. He was later handed over to the Polish au-
thorities, who put him on trial and sentenced him.
Friedman followed up this first success by capturing Shoegl,
the Nazi who had sent his family to Treblinka. Arthur Pier put a
line through these two names in his notebook. He was soon able
to do the same to many more.
Friedman traveled through Germany as far as Hamburg and
Liibeck in order to track down SS Sturmbann-Fuehrer Wilhelm
Blum, another who had been responsible for the deaths of many
Jews from Radom. Blum, like many other wanted war crimi-
nals, was in a POWcamp. When Friedman discovered his where-
abouts, he was about to be released. Instead, he was handed over
to the Polish authorities and eventually hanged.
The Last of the Avengers 81

Friedman took on an assistant, a Polish Jew who had been in

Mauthausen concentration camp and who was later to achieve
fame on his own account as a hunter of Nazi criminals Simon —
Wisenthal.
When Friedman became head of the Documentation Center his
role as an avenger grew to include that of a hunter of Nazi
criminals, too. He handed over those he captured to the Allies
though the Great Powers were ceasing to be allies, for 1948 saw
the beginning of the Cold War as well as the armed conflict
between Arabs and Israelis.
On either side of the Iron Curtain, the security forces and
Intelligence servicesbecame too busy with spying and counter-
espionage to have time for hunting down Nazi criminals. The
victors treated Germany, East and West, more gently. With an-
other world conflict looming on the horizon there could be no
question of reviving painful memories; the enemy of yesterday
might well be the ally of tomorrow. Bormann, Mueller, Eich-
—
mann, Mengele, and company could rest in peace denazification
was a thing of the past, so far as the Great Powers were con-
cerned. In Austria, the collaboration between the Documentation
Center and the police slackened; the latter had other fish to fry.

The year 1948 marked the end of the postwar period —but not
quite the end of Jewish vengeance.

One day in 1949, after the Israelis defeated the Arabs and
consolidated their State in the War of Independence, three men
held a meeting in a room Ramat-Gan, a pretty suburb of Tel
at

Aviv. Two of them were Alex Gatmon and Emil Brik. Gatmon
wore the uniform of an Israeli Air Force officer, and Brik had
the ribbon of a “Hero of Israel” in the lapel of his jacket. The
third man was Kouba Sheinkmann, whose whole family had died
in the gas chambers of Treblinka. He had fought with the Polish
Red Army as a commander of shock troops, and once told a
friend: “The finest symphony I’ve ever heard was the bombard-
ment of Berlin.” In 1946 he had landed at Haifa carrying in his
luggage a bit of earth and of human ashes gathered at Treblinka.
During the War of Independence he had been second in com-
82 THE AVENGERS

mand of a battalion. He had also been one of the leaders of the

terrorist organization Lehi.
The three met whether or
to talk about vengeance, to decide
not to return to Europe and carry on where they had left off.
And all three agreed to return.
was no coincidence that none of us married,” Brik told me
“It
later. “We had each sworn to have no personal life while there

was still vengeance to be exacted. We had come to Israel because

the creation of the State rendered the presence of every fighting
man necessary. But with the war over, we had to go back to
finish our task.”
The three flew to Munich, having obtained leave permits from
the Israeli Army, but they had paid their air fare from their
savings. When
they arrived in Germany, Sheinkmann went to
Vienna to see one of the “old guard,” “Manos” Diamant, while
the other two went to Berlin.
“We had our Israeli passports,” Gatmon said, “but no weapons.
Still, we knew we could get them in Germany, and false identity
papers too, because we had good contacts.”
Their “contacts” were some wealthy Jews in Berlin, who pro-
vided them with transport and money, although they knew noth-
ing of their plans. Diamant contributed some more money from
the sale of a house that had belonged to his parents.
The mind was not new. It had been
idea that the four had in
talked over before by the Nakam group, among others. It was to
execute Rudolph Hess, Von Schirach, Speer, and the other prom-
Spandau prison.
inent Nazis serving sentences in
The film producer Arthur Brauner agreed to allow the four
avengers from Israel to use his studios and offices for their pur-
pose. What that purpose was, he had no idea. But the avengers
were well aware of the importance of his help, for the Brauner
Studios looked out over Spandau prison.
For many weeks they kept watch over the prison, took photo-
graphs, and obtained promises of help from inside.
“Diamant and Sheinkmann had joined us in the meantime,”
Gatmon told me, “and our preparations had reached such a point
that, with their help, I’m sure we could have succeeded in our
plan. We’d learned all the details about the guarding of the
The Last of the Avengers 83

prison. And remember one very important point — all security

measures were based on the supposition that any attack on the
prison would be in the nature of rescue operations by ex-Nazis or
neo-Nazis. Nothing else had been considered, and certainly not
the kind of operation we were planning. Yes, I feel sure that we
could have overcome all difficulties and killed the criminals held
.”
inSpandau prison. . .

Yet the plan was never put into operation.

“It was proving to be a very costly business, much more than
we had supposed,” Brik told me. “If we had been provided with
more funds, we would have gone ahead. I blame our institutions,”
he added, “especially those of the State of Israel, for not having
helped us.”
Sheinkmann, who is now a professor and an international ex-
pert in the field of transportation, has given the following expla-
nation to a journalist, Alexandre Doron:
“I can tell the truth about the matter now. The Israeli gov-
ernment and its representatives in Europe, especially in West
Germany and Austria, put obstacles in our way and prevented us
from carrying out our mission. There were violent quarrels be-
tween us and the Israeli authorities, and things reached the point
where we were ordered to return at once to Israel. We obeyed,
but were brokenhearted.”
Alex Gatmon, however, put the matter in a different perspec-
tive:

“Wehad other plans, which did not require so much in the

way of funds and equipment. We
wanted to find and execute
other Nazi criminals, who were living in freedom. Our plans
included blowing up the house where Hitler had lived as a child
— an act of symbolic value only. But we did nothing at all. When
my leave was up, I applied for an extension and it was granted.
Nevertheless, we returned to Israel without having carried out
our mission. Yes, we failed. We
came to grief where moral mat-
ters were concerned —
ideology. I well remember my feelings at
the time. I was a long way from my country, with an Israeli
passport and the papers of an officer in the Jewish Army. It was
by no means easy become what I had been
to before. The World
War had long been over and I was no longer stateless. I was part
84 THE AVENGERS

of a structure, an organization. The existence of the State of

Israel and the fact that my mission ought to be carried out under
orders from my country had a great influence upon me. I even
tried to get the permission of the Israeli government to go ahead
with the plan, and after a long wait I was refused such permis-
sion. I thought that I would be showing disloyalty to my country
if I did something that could be harmful to its interests. I told
myself that there were men responsible for upholding the honor
of my country, that vengeance had its place but not if it meant
insubordination, defying the national authority.
“The time for individual action was past. Perhaps we were too
weak, not bold enough in our desire for vengeance. But as far as I
—
was concerned, the question was settled I was first of all an
Israeli!”
One after the other, the last of the avengers flew to Israel. The
Documentation Center in Vienna had little to do, and Tuviah
Friedman himself emigrated to Israel in 1952.
Alex Gatmon had been right; individual and group vengeance
had come to an end.
 «

ISRAEL IS OUR REVENGE

In the preceding episodes, I have tried to confine mysetf to bald

accounts and to make comment. From the revelations made
little

by dozens of men there emerged certain facts and ideas which

throw a light on the special character unique in history of — —
these reprisals.
First, the people concerned. It is a striking fact that the
avengers were all just men, men of integrity, whether they be-
longed to the Jewish Brigade, the Nakam group, the “German
Battalion,” theDocumentation Center, or lesser-known groups.
Their behavior bears witness to their complete intellectual and
moral honesty. They were as severe toward themselves as they
were toward the Nazi criminals and murderers. Justice was their
aim. They took care to avoid causing the innocent to suffer. Plans
for wholesale reprisals against the German people were never put
into effect.
Some of the avengers had lost relatives or even whole
families in the death camps. Yet when they struck it was not so
much to avenge a father or a brother as to avenge the whole
Jewish race. Each believed he had been entrusted with a mission
on behalf of all the dead and living of the Jewish race. And that
mission was to punish; to ensure that those who had massacred
hundreds of unarmed men, women, and children should not re-
turn home in all tranquillity after a few months in a camp POW
or after an absurdly short prison sentence.
One may ask why
vengeance had to be specifically Jewish.
this
In the first place, because no other race or nation had suffered
from the Nazis in any comparable way, and the Jews felt they
ought to be directly concerned in punishing the guilty ones.
Secondly, the Allies did not always show a severity proportionate
85
86 THE AVENGERS

to the enormity of the crime, or sufficient energy in seeking out

Nazi criminals whoever and wherever they were.
The avengers had all fought against the Germans. One might
have thought that the Jews who survived the concentration
camps would have been the most eager to hunt down those re-
sponsible. This was not so; not because they had no wish to see
justice done, but because their terrible experiences had broken
them.
“During the war, when we blew up a German train,” Beni said
to me, “we knew that we were avenging our martyrs.”
—
They were indeed fighters, soldiers “Manos” Diamant, Emil
Brik, Alex Gatmon, and the officers and men of the Palestine
Brigade whom Winston Churchill mentioned for their bravery in
battle in the Libyan desert and in Italy. These men had not been
humbled, and they were neither cowards nor fanatics. By taking
up arms against Germany, they had made a choice. And when
Germany was defeated they were able, having kept intact their
moral strength and their dignity as Jewish soldiers, to act on
behalf of their brothers who had disappeared and the survivors
from the Nazi hell who were too weak, too crushed, to take on
the task of administering punishment themselves.
The avengers did not touch the possessions of the people they
killed, despite the fact that they needed money for organizing

their “operations.” They were sometimes obliged to turn to

shady deals, to make money from the many rackets flourishing in
Europe at that time. “Some of it wasn’t at all nice,” Reuven told
me. But not a penny was taken from the men they executed.
They drowned Nazis, poisoned them, shot them through the
head, but never robbed them, never committed any act of “re-
cuperation.” They all were conscious of vengeance as a blood-
taking that had to remain above reproach.
“We were obsessed by that idea,” Alex Gatmon told me.
“When my group was serving in the Russian Army there were
soldiers looting and thieving all round us. But we never took
anything. I remember once, while we were searching the house
of a German officer, one of us took away a pair of his gloves. His
wife didn’t even notice. It was the depth of winter and we
needed gloves badly, believe me. When we got back to our billet
Israel Is Our Revenge 87

we talked the matter over for hours. And —you’ll think I’m
joking —that same evening we
took the gloves back to the offi-
cer’s wife. Only vengeance mattered, and that had to remain
without blemish.”

The number of Nazis executed by all the avengers, according

to people who should know, was between one and two thousand.
Compared with the number of Jews killed during World War II,

this total seems insignificant. I have asked several well-placed

people, Gentiles as well as Jews, how they accounted for the total
being so small. Some replied that the Jewish people had lost the
capacity to return blow for blow, after two thousand years of
pogroms and humiliations. Others said that those who had sur-
vived the concentration camps wanted to forget the horrible
nightmare that they had lived through and to start life afresh.
These reasons have some foundation, but for me they don’t
provide the full explanation. A more plausible reason, in my opin-
ion, is to be found Jewish people themselves. Because they
in the
have been subjected to so much brutality and suffering, they have
reached a level of humanity, of civilization, which led them to
refuse to apply the ancient precept of “an eye for an eye, a tooth
for a tooth.” Otherwise, what terrible reprisals there might have
been. This opinion is based on talks I have had with dozens of
avengers, and my observation that Jewish vengeance was greatly
inferior to reprisals taken by some countries whose population
had suffered than the Jews.
less

And paradoxical as it may seem, the limitation of Jewish ven-

geance was chiefly due to the creation of the State of Israel. If the
birth pangs of the State had not been so prolonged, calling for the
energies and sacrifices of all Jews, number of
it is certain that the
Nazi criminals executed would have been much higher. There
was sometimes a clash of opinion, even bitter recriminations as —
—
over the Spandau plan between the groups of avengers and the
Jewish authorities in Palestine. But between vengeance and cre-
ating the State of Israel —
both sacred duties in the eyes of the
—
avengers the choice was often difficult.
The leaders of Haganah whose opinions carried much weight,
,

were firmly opposed to massive reprisals against the German

88 THE AVENGERS

people, fearing that world opinion might turn against the Jews.
The avengers, for their part, would have liked to have been offi-
cially recognized by the Jewish organizations in the first place,

and later by the State of Israel, so that vengeance could have been
exacted in the open and the world would have known who had
struck and why.
“We had chosen an emblem for the avengers,” Diamant has
said. “It was the Scouts’ lily on the Tables of the Law. had a We
bit of an argument about whether to add a knife or a revolver.
We wanted to leave our sign on every Nazi executed, by cutting
off one ear or leaving the mark of Cain on his forehead, or by
pinning on his chest a sheet of paper bearing our emblem and the
word “Remember!” We
would have liked everyone to know that
the Jews were avenging themselves.”
And because it was the Jews who were avenging themselves,
vengeance remained “humane.” When I mentioned the plans to
wipe out the whole population of certain German towns to the
Israeli poet, Hayim Gouri, he was flabbergasted. “They were
going to kill women, old men and babies?” he exclaimed. “I’d
never have given my approval to such an act!”
Moreover, most of the avengers were intellectuals or students,
just the kind of men it is difficult to visualize carrying out such
acts. Only one, a Palestinian, spoke to me of “the sweet taste of

vengeance.” Most had a feeling of loathing after each murder.

“Afterwards, I vomited,” Colonel B. told me.
All these men were able to take up normal lives because they
were normal. Today, they are army officers, businessmen,
schoolmasters, and farmers. Not one of them told me that he
regretted what he had done. On the contrary, they all think that
Jewish vengeance was mild. In any case, whatever the extent of
the avengers’ actions, they could not bring the six million Jewish
victims of Nazism back to life.
But wasn’t the real vengeance, the finest of all, the rebirth of
Israel after two thousand years and the new Jewish nation, free
and victorious, with its eyes turned to the future?
 PART TWO

IN FLIGHT
 «

THE IMPREGNABLE FORTRESS

“ Give me and you won’t recognize Germany /” Hitler

five years ,
had boasted. And he kept his word. By the early spring of 1945,
the Reich which was going to last a thousand years and reduce
the rest of the world to slavery was at its last gasp.
The Allied armies advancing from east and west were coming
—
upon the horrible sights in concentration camps corpses in such
great heaps that bulldozers were needed to fill the common graves,
and the gas chambers, such as those at Auschwitz where nine
thousand people, chiefly Hungarian Jews, went to their deaths
in a single day.
The Allied armies met with no resistance. The Wehrmacht had
ceased to exist as a fighting force. Only inside encircled Berlin
was a battle still The defenders were mainly members
going on.
of foreign legions who knew they would meet with severe re-
prisals in their own and units of the Hitler Youth
countries,
armed with anti-tank grenades. From his bunker in the grounds
of the Chancellery, Hitler devised counterattacks with battle
groups that existed only in the feverish mind of the desperate
dictator. Finally he committed suicide and had his body burned.
Goebbels, too, did away with himself. Himmler and Goering
tried to save their skins by establishing contact with the West
and offering to surrender but to continue against the Russians.
But for all the others, for the thousands of minor Nazis who had
carried out local massacres, and especially for the hundreds of
leading Nazis whom the Fuehrer had put in charge of his police
and security and the Final Solution of
services, his racial policy,
—
the Jewish question for Martin Bormann, Adolf Eichmann,
Heinrich Mueller, Mengele, Von Leers, and the like, as well as

91
92 THE AVENGERS

for the quislings such as Leon Degrelle and Ante Pavelic —for all

those, the only hope was in flight.

And they had carefully organized their means of escape while
they still had the necessary power and money. However enthusi-
astic they may have been in supporting Hitler’s plans, and however
convinced they may have seemed of the ultimate success of their
diabolical designs, they had not neglected to arrange for escape
routes and places of refuge where they hoped to live in all tran-
quillity should their regime collapse. Nor had they failed to take
steps to have all their accumulated wealth at their disposal, if and
when the final disaster came.

Amost unusual conference of German officials and industrial-

ists was held at the Maison Rouge Hotel in Strasbourg on August

10, 1944. The proceedings of this “Red House” conference are

known from the shorthand report, which fell into the hands of
the American OSS at the end of the war. A Lieutenant Revesz
showed it to Simon Wisenthal, who took a photostat and pub-
lished it some years later.
Among those present at this conference were representatives of
the Ministry of Munitions and the Foreign Office, delegates from
—
the big industrial combines Krupps, Messerschmitt, Rochling,
—
Goering Werke, Hermannsdorfwerke and several senior civil
servants. The object of the meeting was to decide upon measures
for safeguarding the treasury of the Third Reich. They reached
—
two main decisions some of the riches would be hidden away in
the territory of the Reich; and German capital would be sent
abroad.
The region chosen for hiding the treasures was the Austrian
Ausseeland, in particular lakes Toplitz, Grundlsee, and Alt
Aussee, where they decided to submerge the metal containers.
Some abandoned mines in the Totengebirge forest were also to be
used as hiding places. And “experimental stations for the indus-
trial use of water” were neighborhood of these
to be built in the
Alpine lakes, especially Lake Toplitz (in the very heart of Hit-
ler’s “Alpine redoubt” which was supposed to become the final

bastion of Nazi resistance). But in fact these “experimental sta-

The hnpregnable Fortress 93

tions”were to be workshops for treating the treasures and pack-

ing them into specially prepared, watertight containers.
These treasures were chiefly gold and precious stones, silver,
foreign currency, patents, designs of secret weapons, and even
drugs.
The second decision made at the “Red House” conference was
not nearly as fantasticand proved to be of major importance.
The regulations against sending capital abroad were lifted, and
steps were taken to authorize, even encourage, the opening of
bank accounts in friendly or neutral countries such as Switzer-
land, Liechtenstein, Spain, Argentina, and all Latin American
countries. In the foreign country, a “front man” would buy up
big industrial concerns on behalf of Germans. To make certain
that the funds would be placed in the right hands when the time
came, the names of these intermediaries and copies of the trans-
fers of funds were also to be deposited in the containers sub-
merged in the Alpine lakes.
The conference urged that the Nazi Party should go under-
ground in the event of defeat, and should prepare for a return to
power with the help of the treasures safely hidden away.
These decisions began to be put into effect in the following
months. An “experimental station” was set up near Lake Toplitz
and a number of containers packed chiefly with forged pound
notes and documents were submerged in the lake, and some other
containers were hidden away in old mines in the hills. Most of
them were removed again when Allied forces were approaching
the region. Although the Allies did not have full knowledge of
these hiding places until the report of the “Red House” confer-
ence fell into their hands, some information on the Nazis’ post-
war plans had reached the Allied secret services early in 1945. In
March of that year a detailed report on the subject was submitted
Department in Washington:
to the State
“The Nazi regime has made very precise plans for the per-
petuation of its doctrine and domination after the war. Some of
these plans are already being put into effect.
“Members of the Nazi Party, German industrialists and Army
leaders, realizing that there is no hope of victory, are presently
94 THE AVENGERS

preparing commercial plans for the postwar period, endeavoring

to renew connections with industrial circles abroad in the hope of
reestablishing prewar cartels. After the war, the intention is for
‘front men’ to appeal to the courts of various countries against
the ‘illegal’ seizure of German industrial concerns and other
German property by the Allies at the outbreak of the war. In the
event this method does not succeed, the recovery of the German
property would be made through figureheads possessing the
requisite citizenship. German attempts to continue to have a
share in the control and development of technological progress
during the immediate postwar period are reflected in the phe-
nomenal increase in German patents registered in certain foreign
countries during the past two years. These registrations reached
their peak in 944.
1 . . .

“German capital and plans for the building of ultramodern

technical schools and research laboratories are being offered on
very advantageous terms, in view of the fact that the Germans
will thereby be able to make and perfect new weapons.
“The German propaganda program is an integral part of this
general planning for the postwar period. The immediate aim of
this propaganda program will be to bring about a relaxation of

Allied controls on the pretext that the Germans should be treated

“honestly.” Later, this program will be extended and intensified
with a view to reviving Nazi doctrine and pursuing German
ambitions of world domination. Unless these plans are counter-
acted, they constitute a constant threat to the peace and security
of the postwar world.”
The American specialists had greatly extended their knowledge
of this subject by the end of the war. They soon had a list of 750
firms with head offices in neutral countries, founded or bought
with German capital. Switzerland headed the list with 274 firms;
then came Portugal with 258, Spain with 12, Argentina with 98,
1

and Turkey with 35. A number of firms had also been acquired in
South American countries other than Argentina.
Special accounts in Swiss and Liechtenstein banks were placed
at the disposal of the Argentine Government, officially to help
their industrial development. Some of the accounts were made
personally available to Argentine leaders.
 «
The hnpregnable Fortress 95

As military defeat and final castastrophe had become more cer-

tain, the Nazi chiefs stepped up their preparations for the future
— a future in which they meant to have a stake. They had de-
posited large sums with banks in neutral countries and salted
away just as much in the portfolios of apparently respectable
persons in Liechtenstein, Portugal, and Patagonia, and had hidden
much wealth in the depths of old salt mines in Austria and below
the dark waters of the Alpine lakes. All of this hidden treasure
might indeed permit a revival of Nazism one day so long as —
there were still Nazis around able to draw upon it.
In the spring of 1945, the immediate concern of the Nazi lead-
ers was not to see the phoenix rising again from the still-warm
ashes but to take flight, to get far away as quickly as possible.

In 1943 Admiral Doenitz had declared: “The German U-boat

fleet is proud to have made an earthly paradise, an inpregnable

fortress for the Fuehrer, somewhere in the world.”

He did not say in what part of the world it existed, but fairly
obviously was in South America.
it

As far back as 1933, when the Nazi Party had come to power,
the new masters of the Reich had made a special effort to spread
their doctrine in South American countries. For several reasons,
these countries presented a fertile field. There were large Ger-
man colonies strongly established in many parts of Latin Amer-
ica. Several hundred thousand Germans or people of German
stock were settled in Brazil. At Blumenau and Florianopolis, in
the federal state of Santa Catarina, everything was, and still is,

reminiscent of Germany —the countryside, the style of the houses,

the appearance of the people, their speech. It was the same in sev-
eral regions of Argentina. In the capital, Buenos Aires, in Tucu-
man, Formosa, Cordoba, and Cordier, in the Gran Chaco and the
vastness of the Farana Misiones and at San Carlos de Bariloche, a
,

bit of Switzerland in the southern hemisphere, with its pine trees

—
and snow-clad mountainside at all these places German colonies
had settled and expanded with amazing rapidity. In Paraguay, tens
of thousands of German immigrants had cleared and cultivated
virgin areas to the east of Asuncion and had given their new
towns names like Hohenau to remind them of their origins. An-
 s

96 THE AVENGERS

other wave of German immigrants had spread over the southern

part of Chile, the region round the towns of Osorno and Valdivia,
and the island of Chiloe, as well as settling in the capital, Santiago.
Many more had gone to Peru, Uruguay, and other Latin Ameri-
can countries.
Oddly enough, most of Germans had emigrated to South
these
America to escape the authoritarian rule of Kaiser Wilhelm II.
The group were often progressives and liberals.
leaders of each
But it is common for nationalism and chauvinism to develop
strongly among expatriates. And the generation of Germans born
in South American countries, yet brought up in a tight little
German world, was inevitably attracted by the “dynamic” doc-
trines of National Socialism. The presence of these settlers of
German origin greatly facilitated the spread of a Nazi-inspired
movement in the Latin American countries. The leaders of the
Third Reich thus found loyal and faithful allies who were already
strongly entrenched in those countries; a number held important
positions in the economic, social, or political field.
Nazi penetration was also enhanced by the open and somewhat
naive admiration which the mass of Latin Americans fdt and —
still —
do feel for everything German. Chileans, Paraguayans,
Argentinians— all believed that the Germans possessed what their
own civilization lacked — efficiency, order, discipline, organizing
ability. To support was the example of a num-
this belief, there
ber of German banks and industrial concerns that were success-
fully established in South America. Also, there were their own
armies, most of them formed and trained by German officers,
which had a decisive influence on the politics of nearly all the
Latin American countries. The Argentine Army kept the Prus-
sian-type spiked helmet until the end of World War II, and
Chilean Army cadets still do the goose step when marching on
parade. Juan Peron was already a great admirer of Hitler when,
as a young officer, he went to Italy a few years before the war
for an army course. And even today, South American countries
regard fair hair as a mark of distinction and quality.
In such a favorable climate, it is not surprising that the Nazi
plant flourished. By 1939, before the outbreak of the war, many
Nazi organizations had come into being, directed from Berlin,
The bnpregnable Fortress 97

and they enjoyed the favor if not the support of certain leading
circles. These organizations were capable of becoming an effi-

cient fifth column, if the need should arise. When the war did
break out, many of these South American Germans volunteered
for service in the Wehrmacht, as did some South Americans of
other nationalities. (A typical example of the sympathetic feeling
toward Germany prevailing in Argentina was the delirious wel-
come the crowds gave to the hapless crew of the pocket battle-
ship Admiral Graf Spee after she had been scuttled.)
At that time there was no question of creating an “impregnable
fortress” for Hitler and his associates. Victory seemed cer-
tain, and they were planning to make Latin America their own

—
preserve an immense German colony, rich in raw materials and
human potential. They created subversive movements to seize
power in certain countries when the time came, and tried to gain
the favor of the ruling classes.
The chief object of their campaign was Argentina.

For Nazi agents in Argentina had received

several years the
their orders and instructions from Madrid. The German Ambas-
sador there, General Wilhelm Faupel, was also president of the
—
Latin American Institute in Berlin which was nothing but the
instrument for German penetration into South America.
The senior members of the German Embassy in Buenos Aires
were exceptionally brilliant. Faupel had a representative there
the navy captain Dietrich Niebuhr. The correspondence that
passed between these two, and the reports of the Allied Commis-
sion’s interrogations of members of the German Embassy at the
end of the war, provide a wealth of evidence on the manner in
which Nazism took root in Argentina during the years 1939—
1
945 -

games of poker began at the home of the

In 1940, friendly
German Ambassador, Von Thermann. On the German side, in
addition to the Ambassador and his wife, were the Prince and
Princess Schaumburg-Lippe, Captain Niebuhr, Godofredo San-
stede (a Gestapo agent, officially a press attache at the Embassy),
Count Luxburg, Ricardo von Leute, F. Walter Stad, Ludwig
Freude, and Von Simon. The Argentinians were a number of
98 THE AVENGERS

senior officers with political interests: Generals Ramirez, Pertine,

and Farrell, Admirals Scasso and Teissaire, and Colonels Brick-
man, Heblin, Mittelbach, Tauber, Gilbert, Gonzalez, and Juan
Peron.
Oddly, the Argentinians always had luck on their side and
picked up the big jackpots. But as Von Thermann confessed later
to the Allied Commission: “We wanted our friends to be satis-
fied, so we let them win all the time.”
These small liberalities were only one item in the distribution
of the funds put at the disposal of the German propagandists in
Buenos Aires. Godofredo Sanstede systematically paid out sums
to the Argentinian press. For example, between June 24 and 27,
1940, the newspaper El Pampero received 66,492.20 pesos (check
no. 682,106, drawn on the Deutsche Bank), the Deutsche La Plata
Zeitung received 32,910.10 pesos (check no. 458,405), and the
Clarinda 23,916.30 pesos (check no. 463,804).
In June 1941, Prince Schaumburg-Lippe, he revealed later, gave
large sums ranging from 25,000 to 200,000 pesos to a number of
Argentine notables. Chief among them were Miguel Viancarlos,
who received 25,000 pesos (check no. 463,801, dated June 24; Eva
Duarte, who later married Peron, and who received 33,600 pesos
(check no. 463,803, dated June 26); Belisario Cache Piran, who
received 50,000 pesos (check no. 682,113, dated June 28), and
Colonel Juan Domingo Peron who received 200,000 pesos (check
no. 682,117, dated June 30, 1941).
According Von Thermann,
to these gifts were made at the
request of Captain Niebuhr, who possessed a deep knowledge of
the subterranean ways of political life in Argentina. In May 1943,
Faupel arrived from Madrid and saw Niebuhr. This journey was
such a well-kept secret that Von Thermann himself knew nothing
about it until several months later. The following details about
the secret journey were given to the Allied Commission at the
end of the war:
“General Faupel, accompanied by Godofredo Sanstede, left
Cadiz aboard a U-boat in mid-April 1943. Fie landed in Argentina
on the morning of May 2, and Admiral Scasso was waiting for
him at a secret rendezvous. FFe was taken at once to the German
Protestant church in Buenos Aires.”
 «
The Impregnable Fortress 99

Faupel saw quite a number of people,German and Argentine,

during few days in Buenos Aires.
his They included Count Lux-
burg, Ludwig Freude, Von Leute, Enrique Volberg, General von
der Becke and General Pertine, and Colonels Peron, Mittelbach,
Brickman, and Tauber. On the night of May 8, Faupel and San-
stede embarked on the U-boat which had brought them to Ar-
gentina, and were back at Cadiz by the end of the month.
The reasons for Faupel’s secret journey were revealed a few
weeks later, in June 1943, when an army junta seized power in
Argentina. The members of the junta included all the officers
whom Faupel had met, including the man who became master of
Argentina after the war — Juan Peron.
It would seem, however, that Faupel had another mission be-
sides giving support to the conspirators —to make sure of a
friendly haven should Germany lose the war. At that time, the
spring of 1943, the German situation was growing worse in Eu-
rope as well as in North Africa. Although Germany still had pow-
erful armies in the field, some of the Nazi were beginning
leaders
to make provision against the possibility of defeat. These provi-
dent Nazis were still few in number, but were headed by the
Fuehrer’s '‘Gray Eminence,” Martin Bormann.
The Reich had gone all out to make sure of the faithful sup-
port of the new leaders in Argentina. Juan Peron and many
others of his kind had been showered with bounteous gifts for
several years. Thanks to these handsome presents, Bormann and
his associates were now able to proceed to the next stage in their
plan, the transfer of large sums of money to Argentina to enable
them to live and continue their activities after the defeat of Ger-
many.
During the five years up to 1938, German companies had in-
vested 300 million pesos in Argentina. The total investments
reached three billion pesos in 1945, according to Silvano San-
tander, a member of the Argentine parliament and later his coun-
try’s ambassador to Mexico. This estimate is exaggerated, but
there is no doubt that German investments were very great
indeed and that many were made on behalf of the Nazi Govern-
ment.
The German activities in Argentina were bound to alarm the
IOO THE AVENGERS

Americans. In January 1944, as a result of pressure from the

United States, Argentina broke off diplomatic relations with
Germany and on March 27, 1945, entered the war on the side of
the Allies. By then, the German agents in Argentina had suc-
ceeded in transferring most of their funds into other hands, with
the help of several highly placed Argentinians. When the Argen-
tine government seized all “enemy” property and funds, chiefly
German and Japanese, the money held by Germans had all
melted away. According to the testimony of Fraulein Gerda von
Arensdorff, who was employed at the German Embassy until
1944, some large funds and securities sent to Argentina by the
Nazi authorities were later transferred to the accounts of Argen-
tinians in order to save them from government control. Some of
this juggling came to light in 1950, and the sum of 47 million

— —
pesos officially deposited by the German Embassy was handed
over to the United States. Other funds, however, vanished, in-
5 million pesos which
cluding gold and silver valued at 1
1
had
been deposited with the Deutsche Bank by the German Embassy.
But these funds did not constitute the hard core of Nazi wealth
in Latin America. In 1944 a great treasure had been sent secretly
across the Atlantic, the famous “Bormann treasure.” Toward the
end of 1943, Bormann gave orders for Aktion Feuerland “Oper- —
ation Land of Fire” — to begin. This operation involved the trans-
port from Germany to Argentina of several tons of gold, some
securities, shares, and works of art. According to some reports,
most of the gold teeth taken from the corpses dragged from the
gas chambers of Auschwitz and Treblinka formed part of the
treasure; but I have not been able to confirm this. There is no
doubt, however, that a number of the pictures, statues, and other
works of art looted from European museums and taken to Berlin
were subsequently sent to South America.
Truck convoys rumbled through Germany and France to
Spanish ports where German U-boats were waiting to receive the
precious cargo. Godofredo Sanstede was in charge of the opera-
tion, helped at the Madrid end by General Faupel and the Nazi
master spy, Angelo Alcazar de Velasco. Captain Niebuhr saw to
the transfer of the treasure from the trucks to the U-boats, while
 «-

The bnpregnable Fortress IOI

the Spanish authorities turned a blind eye. Then the U-boats left
port and headed for Argentina.
After the Allied landings in Normandy and then in the
south of France, the land route to Spain became impossible for
the Germans, and Bormann gave orders for “Operation Land of
Fire” to be continued by air. Already, on May 22, 1944, Faupel
had sent the following letter to Dr. Hans von Merkatz at the
Latin American Institute in Berlin:
“Reichsleiter Bormann, who has received two reports from
Von Leute and the Argentine General Pistarini, requires the re-
sumption of the transfers to Buenos Aires. Ask General Galland
to place two aircraft at our disposal, solely for night flying, and
to inform Rudel and Hanna Reitsch. The bearer of this letter,
Kuster, must start preparations at once. Kohn must come in the
first plane, to help Sanstede, who has been ordered to report here

tomorrow.”
The planes took off from Berlin with crack pilots of the
—
Luftwaffe at the controls Galland, Baumbach, Hans Rudel, and
Hanna Reitsch. They Madrid and then took off again
landed at
for Buenos Aires. Despite difficulties arising from the deteriora-
tion of the German military situation, this air lift was continued
until the end of 1944, though there were sometimes long inter-
ruptions.
Several U-boats arrived in Argentine waters after the capitula-
tion of Germany. They were the carriers of bundles of docu-
ments, industrial patents, and securities. On 1945 the U-
July 10,

530 surfaced at the mouth of the River Plate and entered the port
of La Plata. The following month, on August the U-9 77 also
17,
arrived at La Plata. In accordance with international conventions,
both U-boats were interned by Argentina and later handed over
to the United States authorities.
Two more U-boats, according to reliable sources, appeared off
an uninhabited stretch of the coast of Patagonia between July 23
and 29, 1945. Two sailors from the Admiral Graf Spee, Dettel-
man and Schulz, who were sent to Patagonia by Captain Kay
with several of their shipmates, later described their “mission.”
They were lodged at an estancia belonging to a German-owned
102 THE AVENGERS

firm, Lahusen. From there they were taken to a deserted part of

the coast and saw two U-boats surface. The Graf Spee men went
aboard the U-boats and collected some heavy crates which they
ferried ashore in rubber dinghies. Then the crates were quickly
loaded on eight trucks and taken to the estancia but very soon
,

afterwards the trucks set off again with their load, heading in-
land. The rubber dinghies also served to bring about eighty peo-
ple ashore, anumber of whom were in civilian clothes. Judging
by their manner of giving orders, they were obviously important
people. They got quickly into cars waiting for them with engines
running, and were driven off.

A good part, at least, of the Nazis’ wealth had reached safe

hands in Argentina. While the final stages of the transfer were
being effected, the Nazi leaders who
had decided to seek refuge
abroad were setting out on the carefully prepared escape routes.
 *

10

THE RATS LEAVE THE

SINKING SHIP

SS General Heinrich Mueller dreaded chief of the Gestapo left

, ,

the bunker in the grounds of the Chancellery on April 29, 1945,

saying that he would be back in a few hours. He was not seen
again.
However, according to some reports which seem essentially
true, though they differ on points of detail, Mueller fled from the
burning capital that same day. He had lost hope of victory some
time before and, having no desire to die the sacrificial death
Hitler wished, he had been careful to keep an army private’s
uniform, false identification papers, and various documents in
reserve for an emergency. On that April 29, Mueller changed his
SS general’s uniform for that of an army private and, accom-
panied by two members of the Sicherheitspolizei the Security ,

Police, Heiden and Hans Scholz, he set off toward the west. All
three possessed false documents stating they were to report to a
certain military hospital in Berlin for medical treatment.
They walked cross-country as much as possible, sleeping in
abandoned huts farm laborers’ cottages. Mueller
in the forest or in
apparently had a small suitcase with him, full of United States
dollar bills. One morning, near Kassel, the three were stopped at a
British road check. Heiden was arrested, and all trace of him has
been lost from that moment. The other two managed to get
away and headed south. On May 1
3 — five days after the German
surrender — they were in Munich, having hitched a lift now and
then.
Mueller’s ex-wifewas living in Munich, but the two fugitives
kept well away from her house. They continued toward Austria,
I0 3
104 THE AVENGERS

following the railway and during the night of May 6 they

line, 1

crossed the frontier near Mittenwald, in the region of the Sattel-

berg mountains. As day was breaking the two exhausted men
came to a farmhouse outside the village of Scharnitz, and they
hid in a haystack for a few days. They were heading for Inns-
bruck, which they reached on May 24 or 25, taking their bearings
from an army map that Mueller had with him. At Innsbruck they
called at 49 Fallmerayer Strasse, the house of a Walter Brunner,
also a member of the Security Police, who
had been expecting
them for some days. He had a hideout all ready for them, at an
isolated farm near Worgl in the Tirol. Mueller and Scholz
stayed with the farmer for the next three weeks, while Brunner
made arrangements for the next stage of their flight.
Mueller and Scholz went next to the small village of Gries-am-
Brenner, on the Brenner Pass, where they were met by a peasant
who was to guide them across the frontier and take them to an
inn on the Italian side, the Albergo Lupo, kept by a German
agent. However, the difficulties proved too great. Mueller had a
limp and found the steep mountainous terrain too difficult. Be-
sides, he was afraid of being stopped and recognized by frontier
guards. The three made several attempts, but after a fortnight
Mueller gave up and he and Scholz returned to Innsbruck.
Brunner, in the meantime, had made useful contacts with some
of the staff of a displaced persons’ camp which had been set up at
Worgl, in particular with a secretary of Romanian nationality
named Margit Spitzel. For thirty dollars she supplied Brunner
with two refugees’ identification cards. One in the name of Jan
Belinski, born in Lodz, Poland, on March 20, 1902, was given to
Mueller (whose date of birth was April 28, 1900), and the other
in thename of Stepanovic, a Yugoslav, was given to Scholz. Then
the two set off on another attempt to slip across the frontier. This
time Brunner gave them an address, the house numbered 163 in the
village of Nauders (situated above the Reschen, or Resia, Pass,
close to the point where the frontiers of Switzerland, Austria,
and Italy meet.
The difficulties were greater than before, but No. 163 was the
home of one of Austria’s best mountain guides, Rudolf Blaas,
 *-
The Rats Leave the Sinking Ship io 5

nicknamed Der Berggeist, “the phantom of the mountain.” He

had helped hundreds of men cross the frontier illegally. And he
was politically safe, having acted as guide for a number of Nazis
who had wished to enter Austria secretly just before the an-
s chins >
in 1938.
Mueller and Scholz stayed hidden in Blaas’s house for two
days. On the third day they crossed the frontier without incident
and, after a grueling journey, reached Merano. In that town they
contacted a Joseph Wolf, another member of the Sicherheitspoli-
zei and lately an assistant to Kaltenbrunner. During the war,
Wolf had taken part in the scheme to flood the money markets of
the world with forged pound notes.
He took charge of the two fugitives, and they were driven in a
Mercedes to Rome, via Florence. In Rome they stayed in the
Piazza Colonna at the Collegio Croatto, a seminary run by Yugo-
slav priests, supporters of Ante Pavelic, head of the Croatian
nationalist movement. The two Nazis were safe with them. The
superior, Father Mihailovic, gave Mueller a room on the fourth
floor. Soon after their arrival, he took the ex-Gestapo chief to see
the German Archbishop Alois Hudal, a loyal friend to the Nazis.
The Archbishop promised Mueller all help within his power.
After a month in Rome, Mueller and Scholz separated; the
latter left the Eternal City for an unknown destination, while
Mueller moved to the Teutonicum monastery in the Vatican
City. A little later he moved again, to the Collegium Germani-
cum, 10 Via Niccolo da Tolentino, where he remained until the
1

end of 1945.
Mueller did not intend to spend the rest of his life in the
Eternal City. He was waiting for his faithful aides in Berlin to
complete the hoax that he had devised many months previously.
One day, information reached the Allied authorities in battered
Berlin that the body of SS General Heinrich Mueller had been
found among the ruins and that it had been buried at Kreuzberg,
in the American sector. The tombstone bore the inscription: “In
memory of our dear father, Heinrich Mueller, born April 28,
1900, died in the Berlin fighting, May 1945.” On December 15,

1945, the Berlin Registrar officially recorded Mueller’s death.

io6 THE AVENGERS

Eighteen years passed before the deception was discovered. In

September 1963 the grave was opened and found to contain bones
—
from three different corpses none of them the ex-chief of the
Gestapo. According to some reports, the records of his physical
characteristics were missing from the file on him kept in the
archives of the West German Republic.
Mueller thus had thrown everyone off his track. He was offi-

cially dead and buried, and could realize the dream cherished by
all —
the Nazi criminals at the end of the war to begin a new life
under another name.
Nevertheless, he had to find a safer refuge than Italy, and as
soon as possible. Under an assumed name he obtained a permit
from the Red Cross, valid for one year, then got a visa for Spain
through the intermediary of the Aid to Refugees organization.
He sailed from Naples to Barcelona on an Argentine ship of the
Dodero Line, and from Barcelona he was taken to Madrid by an
ex-Gestapo agent named Bernhardt Gretz.
Then all trace of him was lost. There had been press reports of
his having been seen in Moscow and in Albania, but his presence
behind the Iron Curtain seems most unlikely. Mueller was very
active against the Communists when head of the Gestapo. And
while his secret service experience and the list of agents and
informers he could supply would have interested the Russians,
Mueller surely knew that once this information had been ex-
hausted his life would have soon ended.
According to other sources (from which I obtained this ac-
count of Mueller’s flight), he sailed for Egypt in 1949 and lived
—
there for several years under various names Amin Rashad, Amin
Abdel, Megid, Meyer, Crone-Meyer, and Alfred Mardes.
However, I gather from several people generally well informed
on the activities of the ex-Nazi leaders that Mueller never sought
refuge in Egypt but left Spain for South America, where he
knew he could find a safe haven and plenty of money. And it
would seem that he is still alive.

When the fighting ended in Berlin, some men of the Russian

Fifth Army came across a bumed-out tank at Spandau, and lying
 «
The Rats Leave the Sinking Ship 107

near it was the body of a man wearing a long leather jacket. In

one of the jacket pockets they found a small book which turned
out to be the diary of Martin Bormann, the Fuehrer’s deputy and
one of the most astute of the Nazi Party leaders.
—
The dead man was not Bormann this was very soon verified
but an entry in the diary, in Bormann’s handwriting, said “May 1,
attempt to break out.”
A telegram that the Reichsleiter had neglected to destroy was
found Agree with proposal of dis-
in his office: “April 22, 1945.
persal in southern zone beyond the ocean. Signed, Bormann.”
These two sentences clearly conveyed Bormann’s intentions to
flee to South America and showed that he had begun to put his

plans into effect on May 1

On that day, too, he had sent a radio message to Admiral

Doenitz: “The Testament is in force. Will join you as soon as
possible. .” Doenitz thus learned that the Fuehrer was dead and
. .

that he had inherited the supreme command of what remained of

the Greater Reich. By them, Bormann was saying good-bye to his
woman secretary, Kruger, before slipping away from the bunker
and disappearing.
From that moment, the “Bormann mystery” began.
The statements of Bormann’s associates, the reports of various
secret services, and the files of press agencies contain a mass of
contradictory information on what happened to Bormann when
he left the bunker. He was said to have been killed while follow-
ing a German tank, to have been seen lying dead under a tank in
flames, or near a tank in flames,on the night of May 1. He was
later reported to have been seen alive and well in many parts of
the world —
Australia, Majorca, Germany, Italy, Syria, Russia. . . .

Martin Bormann became a godsend to journalists in need of copy

— his appearances were numerous and he turned up every-
where.
One thing only is certain — he was not killed in Berlin. His
presumed death was carefully planned, like Mueller’s, but more
successful. He had been preparing for his eventual flight for eigh-
teen months.
Not a man to take needless risks, he had made the most detailed
io8 THE AVENGERS

arrangements. From information given to me by people whose

names I am not at liberty to divulge, I have been able to put
together an account of the first stage of Bormann’s flight.

Immediately after leaving the bunker, Bormann disposed of his

SS uniform. He probably left behind the leather jacket contain-
ing his diary in order to cover up his tracks or lend support to
accounts of his death. During the night of May 2, across the river
Spree from the Chancellery, General Tibertius caught sight of
Bormann dressed in civilian clothes in the corridors of the Atlas
Hotel, 105 Friedrichstrasse.
Bormann slipped away from Berlin as soon as possible, mixing
with the hordes of refugees and displaced persons wandering
about war-shattered Germany. He, however, knew where he was
going; he wanted to reach Flensburg, on the Danish border,
where Doenitz had set up his government, or Kiel, from where
German U-boats could still put to sea. But on May German
4 the
High Command surrendered to Montgomery all German forces
in northwest Germany, Denmark, and Holland. And not until
seven weeks later did Bormann reach his destination.
One of the few thoroughly trustworthy witnesses in this epi-
sode, the German writer Heinrich Lienau, who knew Bormann
by saw the Nazi leader at the Flensburg railway station on
sight,

June 26, 1945. He was wearing a shooting jacket and breeches,

and disappeared into the crowd before Lienau could give the
alarm.

The leading lights of the Third Reich had been able to put
their wealth into safe keeping and to organize their escape routes
to the “impregnable fortress.” But
had not been possible for
it

them to foresee where they would happen to be when Ger-

many surrendered. For most of them the great problem was first
to reach the German frontier and then to get across it.
In London, Anthony Eden declared that “from Norway to the
Bavarian Alps, the Allies are carrying out the greatest manhunt in
history.” In a large Paris hotel an army of Intelligence officers
and clerks were sifting and record
thousands of personal files

cards. In Germany the whole country was being combed, every

refugee column screened, and every POW
interrogated. As a
The Rats Leave the Sinking Ship «
109

result,some very important persons were caught. The few Nazi

leaders who slipped through the net owed it chiefly to a number
of favorable circumstances.
Goering surrendered to the Americans on May 9, 1945. Keitel
and Doenitz were arrested soon afterward. Albert Speer, the Min-
ister for Production, was captured in his office at Glucksburg by

British officers. The wily Franz von Papen was found hiding in a
gardener’s hut in the grounds of the castle belonging to his son-in-
law, Count Max von Stockhausen. The Governor and Nazi In-
quisitor of Poland, Hans Franck, was apprehended in a POW
camp near Berchtesgaden and just prevented from committing
suicide.
Itwas near Berchtesgaden, too, that a Jewish officer from New
York, Major Blitt, while out for a walk, met a bald, elderly, quiet-
looking man who was living at a picturesque farmhouse and said
he was a painter. Fortunately, Major Blitt, who had an excellent
memory for faces, had little difficulty in recognizing this so-
called painter — Julius Streicher, the Jew-baiter of Nuremberg.
Ribbentrop, the Reich’s Foreign was arrested in
Minister,
Hamburg on June 14, 1945, by British officers. He was preparing
to start over again by returning to his original job as a champagne
salesman.
Himmler, the former SS chief, was in the vicinity of Flensburg
in early May 1945. He called his staff officers together and with
surprisinggood humor said: “Well, gentlemen, you know what
you have to do now.” They looked at him without seeming to
understand, so he added: “You must hide yourselves in the ranks
of the Wehrmacht.” And so the supermen put on privates’ uni-
forms and went off in ones and twos, making their way cross-
country. Some succeeded in through the British and
passing
American lines. Others were not so fortunate. The Auschwitz
camp commandant, Rudolf Hess, was picked up by the British
while working on a farm not far from Flensburg on March 11,
1946. He had remained undiscovered for nearly a year. The Brit-
ish handed him over to the Polish authorities; he received a death
sentence and was hanged.
For Himmler too the end was near. On May 21, 1945, he was
stopped at a British control point on the road to Bremerhaven,
I IO THE AVENGERS

like the rest of the straggling column of refugees and German

soldiers. He
had shaved off his moustache, tied a black patch over
his left eye, and donned an army private’s jacket and civilian
trousers. But he aroused the suspicion of the British, mainly be-
cause of his brand-new permit; most refugees had no papers at all.
After further questioning, Himmler confessed his identity and
was taken to British Army headquarters at Luneberg. There he
was stripped and searched. They made him change into a British
Army uniform just in case any poison concealed in his clothes,
had escaped detection. But Himmler kept his phial of potassium
cyanide concealed in gums. When a British Intelli-
a cavity of his
gence officer arrived and instructed a medical officer to examine
the prisoner’s mouth, Himmler bit on his phial and was dead in a
few minutes, despite frantic efforts to keep him alive by pumping
his stomach.
A few days Americans discovered in a barn at
later, the
Berchtesgaden Himmler’s “private” treasury 132 Canadian dol- —
lars, 8 million French francs,
3
million Algerian and Moroccan
francs, 26,000 pounds sterling, million German marks,
1 million 1

Egyptian pounds, 7,500 Palestinian pounds, two Argentine pesos

—
and one Japanese half-yen in all, the equivalent of about mil- 1

lion dollars.

Adolf Eichmann, on the other hand, was so convinced of ulti-

mate victory that he was one of the very few Nazi leaders not to
provide himself with Early in 1945 his
false identification papers.
superior, Heinrich Mueller, even offered to supply him with some.
But Eichmann’s chief concern then was to exterminate the great-
number of Jews, so that if the Allies continued to
est possible
advance they would find the concentration camps empty of the

A few days before the German surrender, Eichmann went to

Bad Aussee to visit his family. He gave a phial of poison to his
wife, “in case she was arrested by the Russians,” spanked his
young son Dieter for some misbehavior or other, and then left for
the Alt Aussee to see Kaltenbrunner, head of the security services
(who was arrested by the Allies shortly afterward).
Eichmann found Kaltenbrunner playing solitaire, drinking
The Rats Leave the Sinking Ship « 1 1

brandy. He told the security chief that he was setting off for the
mountains with 150 men, including the head of the late Romanian
puppet government, Horia Sima, and his ministers, whose lug-
gage consisted of large sacks filled with bank notes. Eichmann
and his band were up in the mountains when a messenger from
Kaltenbrunner reached them with news of the German sur-
render. Eichmann ordered the others to scatter, while he went
off toward Bad Ischl with his faithful assistant Janisch. He had
put on a Luftwaffe uniform and got past several American con-
trol points without being apprehended. He was calling himself
Karl Barth.
At Ulm, however, the two were stopped, closely
fugitives
questioned, and arrested. “Karl Barth” was found to have the
telltale SS tattoo marks below his armpit. But Eichmann had his

story ready. He admitted that he had lied about his name and said
that he was really Otto Eckmann, a lieutenant in the 22 nd
Waffen SS Division. This story was accepted, and he was sent to
a POW camp at Oberdachstaetten. Probably unaware that
groups of avengers and all the Allied security services were hunt-
ing for him everywhere in Germany, he spent his time peacefully
until January 1946.
Then Eichmann While on trial at Nuremberg,
panicked.
Dieter Wisliceny had revealed the name of the Nazi who had
been in charge of the Final Solution. Eichmann felt that the
POW camp was no longer a safe refuge for him, and he went to
the senior German officer, SS Sturmbann-Fuehrer Oppenbach,
and revealed his identity. A
committee of senior officers at once
held a secret meeting, and as a result provided Eichmann with
identification papers in the name of Otto Heninger and a letter of
introduction from one of the prisoners, Hans Feiersleben, to his
brother, a forest warden at Kohlenbach in Lower Saxony. Then,
Eichmann escaped from the camp, accompanied by another pris-
oner, Kurt Bauer, took a train to Prien, and from there continued
north toward Munich. Eichmann finally reached the home of
Feiersleben’s brother, who found him a forestry job. Not long
afterward, “Otto Heninger” started a chicken farm, and he spent
the next four years living quietly and unmolested in the region.
Contrary to Simon Wisenthal’s account of how Eichmann barely
I I 2 THE AVENGERS

escaped capture while ..visiting his family at Bad Aussee after the
war, Eichmann never traveled to other parts of Germany.
Both Eichmann and Bormann thus found themselves confined
within the German frontiers, unable to reach an Italian port and
escape to South America. Uneasy and anxious as they were, they
had not lost all hope. The moment would come when they would
be able to use the escape routes patiently devised to help them
and others leave Germany —escape routes with such names as Die
Schleuse (the Lock Gates) and Die Spinne (the Spider), among
others.
 <

11

THE LOCK GATES

On Christmas Day 1944, a number of senior officials of the

,

War Ministry received unexpected presents—false identification

papers. In the new year, thousands of SS officers and Nazi offi-

cials were given forged passports, false birth certificates, identifi-

cation cards, and work manufactured by the Gestapo
permits, all

and the special services. Except for Hitler and Goebbels, all the
Nazi leaders were aware of these precautions, and most of them
also provided themselves with other useful documents in the
event they had to flee the country.
Concurrently with these preparations, an organization was set
up to aid the escape of Nazis from Germany. Its name was signifi-
—
cant Die Schleuse the Lock Gates. Gestapo agents acting on
,

instructions from their chief, Heinrich Mueller, began compiling

lists of guides who lived near the frontiers of Switzerland and

Italy. In Schleswig-Holstein they recruited men who knew all of

the smugglers’ routes into Denmark.
Mueller had a very powerful means of persuading recruits to
join this escape organization — the list of Gestapo informers in the
whole of Europe, the names of the agents, spies, and all those in
Switzerland, Italy, France, Denmark, and elsewhere who had at
one time or another collaborated with his secret police. His
envoys now presented these men with a simple choice: either
help the fugitives and be well paid, or be denounced to the Allies
and probably shot or hanged.
In Germany, Austria, and Italy, Mueller also recruited num- a
ber of fanatical Nazis whose faith would not be shaken even by
the defeat of Germany.
One of the escape routes led north, skirting the towns of Kiel,
Schleswig, and Flensburg, into Denmark. Once across the border,
1
3
I 14 THE AVENGERS

the fugitive could either go into hiding with the help of Lock
Gates agents, or mingle with the throngs of German soldiers
soon to be made prisoners of war. A number of Nazis thus
reached Denmark and then escaped by plane to Argentina Gen- —
Peron sent several aircraft to Denmark to collect
eral as many
German scientists and technicians as possible to work in his coun-
try.
This northern route, however, was not the most important.
The chief escape routes were those leading south. One led to
Munich and then divided; the fugitive could either cross the
Austrian frontier at Kufstein or Scharnitz, or proceed southwest
through Memmingen, reach the shores of Lake Constance at
Lindau, then skirt the southern end of the lake to cross into
Switzerland.
He was then safe enough, but he could continue into France or
Italy if he wished. “Don’t be surprised at my including France,”
an Intelligence officer said to me. “Although an Allied country
whose people then hated the Germans, France was a fairly safe
refuge for Nazis, because they were not being hunted as they
were in occupied Germany. They could easily get into Spain or
Italy from France, and then take a ship for South America or the
Middle East.”
The escape route into Austria by way of Kufstein or Scharnitz
led to Innsbruck. One frontier crossing point into Switzerland or
Italy was near the Nauders (the route finally taken by
village of
Heinrich Mueller), and another into Italy was near Gries-am-
Brenner. The collecting point in Italy was at Merano. From
there, escapees were conducted to Genoa, Naples, or Bari. At
each of these ports there were local agents of the Lock Gates
organization who helped them find a ship for Spain, the Middle
East, or South America. The escape routes out of Austria were
therefore concentrated on Innsbruck.
In January 1961, Karl Gritsch, a prominent member of the
Bavarian Red Cross, made some interesting revelations:
— —
“At that time 1945 I was in charge of the Bavarian Red
Cross relief center at Innsbruck. Our office was in Marie-Ther-
esienstrasse at first, then we moved to No. Angerzellgasse, near
3
The Lock Gates « ”5
the Franciscan convent. Our work was to trace missing persons,
make travel arrangements for refugees returning home, and give
financial aid. We also received food parcels for distribution.”
These parcels, Gritsch says, often contained contraband such
as bottles of wine, coffee, cigarettes, and But the
silk stockings.

Red Cross center was engaged in another kind of smuggling too.

“We men across the frontier illegally, from Austria into
got
Germany, from Germany into Italy, and from Austria into Italy.
They were people on the run, but they all had means, chiefly
valuables such as gold or jewelry, or at least hard cash. Anyone
who wanted to cross the frontier illegally knew that we arranged
‘journeys to the south’ without asking unnecessary questions. But
more than money was needed —people had to have the right kind
of references too, otherwise we could do nothing for them.”
These “references” were no more than password — for
a in-
me,” or “Pedro” or some other name. When it
stance, “Lois sent
was a case of conducting a group across the frontier, the Lock
Gates organizer gave the leader half of a picture postcard of
Gries, Nauders, or Innsbruck, and sent the other half to the
frontier guide.
“I never knew names of those we helped to escape,” Karl
the
Gritsch admitted. “For security reasons, we kept no records. A
Franciscan monk who was a member of the Caritas organization
worked with us. He might be able to tell more than I can.”
According to Gritsch, it was not difficult to get fugitives across
the frontier. When they reached Innsbruck they were sent to
stay with farmers or at some safe house, but had to be ready to
leave at a moment’s notice. It was impossible to know in advance
when a favorable opportunity would arise.

“Most of the people we helped were able to enter Italy as Red

Cross couriers taking food parcels or in charge of refugee groups.
We made out Red Cross passes for them, in four languages, and
in false names, of course. Generally speaking, people who ap-
peared to be working for the Red Cross or for Caritas were
—
above suspicion to the Americans as they were to the French
too, when the latter took over as the occupying power in the
Tirol.
 6

I 1 THE AVENGERS

“Occasionally we would have a very urgent case —someone we

had to get across the frontier without a moment’s delay. Then we
employed extreme measures. The man crossed the Brenner Pass
in a car flying the Red Cross pennant. At that time I had a black
Fiat and my assistant, Werner Heine, had a small Steyr. We
drove up to the frontier post and stopped, the guards saluted us,
counted the number of passengers, and checked the Red Cross
documents, then let us through.
“On the other side of the frontier we had a network of safe
addresses —the homes of country inns, religious estab-
friends,
lishments, and Red Cross offices. We
had only to let one or
another of our friends know that a certain fugitive had to be sent
on to Milan, Naples, Rome, or Genoa. All the necessary contacts
were warned in good time. Naturally, we provided all the docu-
ments needed, as well as cigarettes, coffee, and so on.
“It came
was generally the small fry that to us. The others,
those who had plenty of money and good contacts, traveled
under much pleasanter conditions. Nevertheless, once a man had
been taken in charge by Die Schleuse he could rest easy. We
never let anyone down. We were a kind of community whose
members were bound together by oath. Even today, no one,
certainly not the powers that be, knows how fugitives were got
out of Germany and across the frontier to Innsbruck. Yet it was
quite simple. When we had five or six refugees who wanted to
get back to Germany we issued them passes certifying they were
conveying food parcels or were in charge of other refugees re-
turning home. Once they were back in Germany, these passes
were taken from them and given to fugitives waiting to cross into
Austria.”
On
one occasion while trying to get a large party across the
frontier, Gritsch and Heine were arrested at Kufstein by the
French. But they were soon released, since no real charge could
be made against them.

was the Die Schleuse organization that enabled Martin Bor-

It

mann to get away from Flensburg, cross into Denmark, and reach
the SS military hospital installed at Grosten castle, near Sonder-
The Lock Gates ll 7

borg. He stayed there several weeks. One of the medical officers,

a Werner Heyde (also on the run), was among the very few
Dr.
people who knew Bormann’s real identity. But Denmark was too
hot for Bormann. As soon as he made the necessary contacts, he
crossed into Germany again and headed south. Like Mueller be-
fore him, Bormann preferred to avoid the main escape route
—
Bremen-Innsbruck for he was too well known and too impor-
tant a quarry. He was prepared to trust very few people. In slow
stages, he eventually reached Innsbruck and then crossed the
Brenner Pass into Italy.

Rudolf mountain-guide who played a part in Mueller’s

Blaas, the
escape, has boasted that he is the man who helped Bormann cross
the frontier. Perhaps he did, but it is by no means certain. An-
other source of information indicates that Bormann laid low for a
month in a guide’s house until able to cross into Italy.
In any case, Bormann Merano toward the end of
arrived at
1945. His family had been living in the town for some time. But,
like Mueller when passing through Munich, Bormann kept well
away from his wife’s house; a watch was probably being kept on
it. And when Gerda Bormann died in a hospital near Merano on

March 23, 1946, she had never had any news that her husband
was still alive.
From Merano, the Lock Gates organization helped Bormann
get to Bolzano. One day in late autumn, as he was strolling along
a street in that town, awoman recognized him. She was the
widow of a Jewish doctor who had attended the Bormann family
in the early 1930’s. When the persecution of the Jews began, she
nd her husband had left Germany and gone to live in Bolzano.
Bormann recognized the doctor’s widow, too. He turned pale,
swung round, and darted into a courtyard. The woman followed
him, but Bormann succeeded in throwing her off in the maze of
stairways, courtyards, and passages. (This incident is not the only
evidence of Bormann’s presence in Bolzano at that time.)

He probably made his decision to leave the town soon after

this.His next stay was at a monastery on the shores of Lake
Garda, and from there he journeyed slowly southward, going
from monastery to monastery.
 — —

1 18 THE AVENGERS

Simon Wisenthal gives some details of Bormann’s flight in his

book on the Nazi criminals. A man named Franz Holt appears to
have given Bormann considerable help in the autumn of 1945.
Holt was employed by the Austrian Red Cross to arrange the
repatriation of Austrian soldiers held in a POW camp near Flens-
burg. A Blitzmddel — a woman auxiliary of the German Army
got in touch with Holt and offered him some jewelry if he would
conduct her and her brother to Austria. The brother was an odd-
looking man, with a large moustache and thick glasses. Holt ap-
parently agreed to help the couple. He provided them with
papers showing them to be Austrian refugees returning home,
and he accompanied them into Austria and across the frontier at
Nauders. The three then went to a monastery near Vintschgau,
in the Alto Adige.
There Franz Holt learned from the other two that the
“brother” was really Martin Bormann. In order to be admitted to
the monastery, Bormann produced a document was sewn
that
into the lining of his coat. And ever since, according to Simon
Wisenthal’s source, Franz Holt has received a check for a large
sum every month, sent to him from abroad.
It is difficult to know exactly how true this story is. Some
details, however, tally with reliable information obtained from
other sources.
It would appear that Bormann arrived in Rome at the begin-
ning of 1946 the time of the incident recounted earlier, when
some Jewish avengers learned of the Nazi leader’s presence in
Rome. They were unable to trace him, and he succeeded in get-
ting to Genoa. Contrary to several reports, Bormann did not sail

from there to South America, but left for Spain on a coastal

vessel that called at various ports in Corsica and along the south
coast of France.
Bormann found a number of good friends in Spain, one being
Leon Degrelle, the Belgian Fascist leader. By frequently changing
his name and address, Bormann lived undisturbed in Madrid until
the end of 1947. He then decided to make the long voyage to the
“impregnable fortress” which he had helped create. He did not
go in a submarine, as has been reported by some imaginative
writers, and he had no fantastic adventures on the way. He sim-
The Lock Gates « 119

ply sailed for Buenos Aires on an Italian ship with a tourist-class

ticket and the necessary documents, like any ordinary pas-
senger.
The way had been long from Berlin to the shores of South
America.
 ,

12

THE SPIDER, ODESSA,

AND MONASTERY ROUTES

For three years ,

Nazi criminals, helped by the
until 1948, 2,500
Lock Gates organization, escaped from Germany. But this was
not the only escape organization, nor was it the biggest or the
most secret.
Die Spinne, the Spider, was another. This organization began
one autumn night in 1948, in a hut in a POW
camp at Glasenbach.
A few fanatical SS officers decided to found a secret society which
would eventually cover Europe and the world like a spider’s web.
Its aims were the revival of Nazism and the doctrines of National

Socialism, the reparation of the “monstrous injustice” done to the

Nazi leaders, and the reunification of Germany and Austria. SS
Obersturmbann-Fuehrer Paul Hausser was named head of the
organization, and he took as his deputy Stefan Schachermayer, an
ex-Gauinspektor in the Oberdonau region.
Die Spinne soon spread its web all over Germany, camouflag-
ing itself as ex-servicemen’s associations and mutual-aid societies.
In Hamburg, for instance, General von Manteufel founded the
Bruderschaft whose declared object was to uphold the honor of
the German Army and to collect funds for the defense of Ger-
man officers accused of war crimes. In fact, however, its chief
function was to organize escapes from Germany for Nazis
wanted by the police. This escape route also went through Aus-
tria and Italy, to end either in Latin America or South Africa. In

1950 there were rumors that the Spider organization was func-
tioning in Hamburg under cover of the Bruderschaft and that its
leaders were ex-SS Obersturmbann-Fuehrers whose names began

1 20
The Spider, Odessa, and Monastery Routes ‘
121
«

with “W” and “Sch.” Reliable sources have revealed the full
—
names of two of them Leo Schultz and Peter Wetzel, who had
both belonged to the Europadienst. Another man who played an
important part in organizing the escape route from Hamburg was
Hauptmann D. Assmann, who died in 1954.
Two Italians named Nicolossi and De Pauli were the chief
agents for Peter Wetzel in the South Tirol.
The Spider network needed considerable financial support as
well as reliable agents. Funds were raised by several organizations
and societies whose apparent respectability served as a cover for
this less respectable work. One of them, under the presidency of
Princess Elizabeth von Isenburg, was the Stille Hilfe (Silent
Help). The avowed aim of this society was to help the families of
Nazi leaders and army officers who had been sentenced by the
—
courts actually, the funds collected were used to help Nazi
criminals escape and settle abroad.
Another organization, HI AG ( Hilfe und Inter essengemein-
schctft der ehemaligen Angehorigen der Waffen SS), was set up
at Dusseldorf in 1951. As its name implied, the official aim was to
give moral and material support to men who had served in the
Waffen SS. But very few of its members were aware that another
of its activities was to support Die Spinne.
Similar societies were founded in other European countries:
HINAG in Holland, Kameradschaft IV in Austria, St. Martin
Fonds in Belgium, Dansk Frontkampfer Forbindet in Denmark,
Hjelporganisasjonen for Kriegskadede in Norway. They were
all more or less affiliated with the Spider organization, and often

helped Nazi fugitives. Members of these societies did not and —

—
do not hesitate to obtain money under false pretenses. In
Sweden, a “Help German Children Fund” collected large sums
which certainly went to help Germans, but Germans who had
long passed the age of childhood. Even today, such societies make
house-to-house collections in Germany for “the poor orphans of
SS.” Neither collectors nor donators seem in any way embar-
rassed by the fact that such “orphans” would now be about
twenty-five years old.
Die Spinne patiently spun its web. It made contacts with the
122 THE AVENGERS

Swiss organization Centro Europa and with other more or less

official organizations in Austria and Italy and later in other coun-

tries. In Argentina, a famous Luftwaffe pilot, Hans Ulrich Rudel,
who had an enviable position in the aircraft industry there,
founded a “Friendly Club,” which soon set up a branch in Ger-
many under the mame “Rudel Club.” This facilitated the emigra-
tion of ex-Nazis to their establishment overseas. Excellent rela-
tions were formed with Nazi sympathizers in South Africa,
also
notably with Dr. Gerhard Wilhelm Strohl and his Deutscher
V erein.
However, while the Spider was thus growing, quarrels be-
tween its leading personalities resulted in a breakaway organiza-
tion, which became known as Odessa. It had nothing to do with
the Black Sea port; its name came from the initials of Organiza-
tion der ehemaligen SS Angehorigen (Association of ex-SS Mem-
bers).
A hunter of Nazis once told me: “Odessa is an important and
dangerous organization. Eighty per cent of its activities are un-
derground. It has close contacts with Die Spinne and is well
provided with funds by German businessmen. The neo-Nazi
youth movements are financed by it.”
According to the public prosecutor in the Eichmann trial,
Gideon Hausner: “Odessa provides its members with material
aid, organizes social activities, and when necessary helps ex-Nazis

escape to foreign countries. It has its headquarters at Munich,

with branches all over Germany and Austria, as well as in South
American countries. The German community at Hohenau in
Paraguay is dominated by Odessa.”
Simon Wisenthal received information that the main center of
Odessa in its early days was at either Augsburg or Stuttgart, and
that the organization at once began helping Nazi criminals in
their flight from Germany. In a matter of months it had built up
a network covering the whole of Europe. One of the escape
routes involved German truck drivers employed by the Ameri-
can Army, who drove trucks loaded with bundles of the Stars
and Stripes down the Munich-Salzburg autobahn. Neo-Nazi
—
pamphlets were concealed behind the bundles and often escap-
ing Nazis too. There was a stage of the escape route every thirty
The Spider ,
Odessa, and Monastery Routes
t
123

miles or so, usually a lonely inn, a hunting lodge in the woods, or

an isolated farmhouse. At each stage of the escape three, or at
most five, people were in charge. They knew no more of the
escape route than the stage immediately preceding their own and
the one that came after it. The Germans had learned from the
secret warfare against the Resistancemovements.
The main stages along the Austrian-German frontier were near
Ostermieting in upper Austria, at Zell-am-See near Salzburg, and
at Igls in the Tirol. An export firm at Linz had contacts in Cairo
and Damascus.
The years 1948-1953 thus saw a profusion of underground
organizations in Germany — Spider, Odessa, Stille Hilfe the
—
Rudel Club, the Bruderschaft HIAG all of them more or less
,

secret and all prepared to give considerable aid to those who

feared a day of reckoning. Industrialists, bankers, ex-army offi-
cers, often the general public —
though unaware were called —
upon to supply the necessary funds. The thousands of Nazi crim-
inals who were lying low in Germany under assumed names
knew that henceforth they had somewhere to turn for aid and
protection. When one of them was brought to trial, the under-
ground organizations were in a position to obtain the services of
the best lawyers, to bring pressure to bear on the judges, and
sometimes even to do away with inconvenient witnesses. And
should the trial go badly for the accused, the organization would
help him flee the country.

There was, however, an element of risk in relying upon ex-

Gestapo, SS, or Nazis for running the escape routes. Even though
they had been cleared, denazified, they were liable to attract the
attention of the occupying powers. The successful flight of so
many wanted men would be difficult to understand if one did not
realize thatthey were able to count on the help of apparently
respectable organizations and others usually considered above
suspicion — among them, surprisingly, people from the Red Cross
and the Roman Catholic Church.
The part played by several Bavarian and Italian Red Cross
officials in getting Nazis across the frontier illegally has already
been described. It is even more surprising to note the help given
I2 4 THE AVENGERS

to escaping Nazis by people from religious organizations such as

Caritas and by the Franciscan and Jesuit communities. The Nazis
were very clever at appealing to the charitable spirit of the monks,
and excellent relations had always been maintained between the
Nazi Party and the “German faction” in the Vatican, which had
become very influential after the election of Pope Pius XII. One
of the leaders of this “German faction” was Archbishop Alois
Hudal, mentioned earlier.
The help given by some religious institutions and church cir-
cles was of prime importance. There was, for instance, the case
of Dr. Hans Heffelmann, who had caused the death of 73,000
people by practicing “euthanasia” asrecommended by the Nazis.
When finally brought to trial at Limburg in 1964, he gave the
details of his escapefrom Germany in 1948. On arrival in Vienna
he went to the office of the Papal Nuncio, and there was advised
to go either to Argentina or Peru. Several priests and a cardinal,
members of Caritas told him how to leave Italy and reach South
,

America. Never at any time was he asked why he had left Ger-
many and wanted to get out of Europe. With this help and
guidance, he was able to reach Argentina, where Caritas again
came to his aid by finding work for him and for his wife.
Between 1947 and 1953 the V atinkanische Hilfslinie, the
“Vatican aid line” or “monastery route,” became the safest and
best-organized escape route from Germany to a refuge overseas.
The following details of this “monastery route” are taken from a
secret report compiled by a group of avengers from information
obtained from escapees who had used the route.
The first person in the chain, a gamekeeper in the Luneburger
Herde district, put the aspiring expatriates in touch with religious
establishments, one of which was the Evangelische Hiljswerke in
Hamburg. Each person had to pay a fee of 300 marks and in
return was given the following instructions.

1. Kuf stein (Austria). Apply to the Father Superior of the

Jesuit monastery.
2. Innsbruck. See the owner of a certain garage.

3. Brenner Pass. See a certain person in a given village.

4. Bolzano (Italy). Go to Dr. Franz Poppizer, a history and
The Spider, Odessa , and Monastery Routes 125
«

Latin teacher. He would supply the Italian and South American

identification cards. Board and lodging at the Franciscan mon-
astery.

5. Genoa. The Franciscan monastery.

6. Genoa. To 38 Via Albano for medical certificates (required

by the Argentine immigration authorities), after a medical ex-

amination at the offices of an Argentine commission for the im-
migration of Italian workers.
7. Belgrano (Argentina). Apply to the monastery of Mount
Salvae. At this monastery the new were given every help
arrivals
with the preliminaries of their stay in the country. It was then
easy for the expatriates to contact one of the Nazi organizations
existing in Argentina, or to continue their journey if they had
decided to settle in another country.

In 1950 Eichmann felt that the time had come to leave his
chicken farm in Lower Saxony and take his plans for personal
safety a stage further. His name still figured in the headlines from
time to time, in the company of two other wanted Nazi leaders,
Heinrich Mueller and Martin Bormann. But most of the hunters
of Naziwar criminals seemed to have abandoned the chase.
Eichmann got into contact with the Hamburg branch of Die
Spinne. Noone questioned his decision to leave Europe, and
everything was done to facilitate his escape. He and three other
Nazi fugitives were put on the “monastery route.” He passed
through all the stages indicated above and arrived at Genoa
without incident. No one seems to have suspected his real iden-
tity, except one monk who nevertheless obtained passage to

Buenos Aires for him and his companions on the steamship Gio-
vanna C.
And so, in mid-July 1950, “Richard Klement,” mechanic by
trade,born in Bolzano but of German origin, stepped ashore at
Buenos Aires. Eichmann could breathe again. Like so many other
Nazi criminals, he had at last reached the “impregnable fortress”
and thought he was safe for the rest of his days.

One of those who

had preceded Eichmann to Argentina with
similar assistance was Ante Pavelic, the Yugoslavs’ bloodiest op-
126 THE AVENGERS

pressor during the war. One day in the summer of 1948, an old
Italian ship, the Andrea Gritti , sailed into the harbor at Buenos
Aires and tied up. The passengers waiting to go ashore respect-
fully gave way group of Roman Catholic priests who ap-
to a
peared to be in a hurry. Leading the group was a tall, burly man
in a long cassock. He had a moustache and a goatee and was
wearing steel-rimmed glasses. With his squad of priests trailing
behind him, he strode purposefully toward the Argentine immi-
gration officials.

None of the onlookers could possibly have suspected that the

big strong hands of this cassocked figure were more adept with a
revolver than a censer, and that he was sought by all the police
forces of Europe for having been responsible for the extermina-
tion of 850,000 people.
Ante born in Herzegovina in 1889, had become, while
Pavelic,
still a young man, head of the Croatian nationalist movement

Ustasa. In this capacity he had organized many acts of terrorism.

Most spectacular was the assassination of King Alexander I of
Yugoslavia in Marseilles in 1934.
One of Pavelic’s associates, Kwaternik, had arrived in France a
few days before King Alexander with a whole armory of
grenades and revolvers. He also had on him a note written and
signed by Pavelic: “Carry out without argument all instructions
given by the bearer of this note.” Thus he procured all the help
necessary to assassinate King Alexander and, incidentally, the
French Foreign Minister, Barthou, who was riding with the King
in an open carriage.
Pavelic was then under the protection of
living in exile in Italy,
Mussolini, and although his name was mentioned in connection
with the assassination, he was left in peace. A few years later,
when the Germans occupied Yugoslavia, Pavelic became head of
the puppet Croatian state and his armed bands started a reign of
terror in the country, massacring Jews, Serbs, and gypsies, burn-
ing villages, and leaving behind forests of gallows and ghastly
heaps of horribly mutilated bodies. Some time in the summer of
1941, Pavelic’s faithful followers presented him with the most
awful gift ever devised — a wicker basket containing forty pounds
of human eyes.
The Spider, Odessa, and Monastery Routes I2 7
«

When, early in 1945, it became obvious that the Reich was

faltering, Pavelic thought of continuing his fight against the
Communists by seeking the support of Italy. Then he sent his
chief assistant, Stepan Vrangi9, to parley with the advancing
Americans and try to persuade them to enter Yugoslavia and
make a stand against the “Red peril.” But Vranc^’s mission came
to nothing, and Pavelic saw that his only chance for safety was
flight.

One night in April 1945, Pavelic set out for Austria with his
wife Mara and his bodyguard. Several cars in the convoy were
loaded with crates full of gold and silver. After depositing thirty-
six other crates containing his “treasury” at a Zagreb monastery,
Pavelic continued toward Austria.
The convoy had no and reach-
difficulty crossing the frontier
ing a farm near Salzburg, where Pavelic set up temporary head-
quarters. His first move was to get in touch with his friends in
the Vatican City, and they soon organized his escape. A few
weeks later, Pavelic, in possession of a forged passport crossed into
Italy, disguised. —
There three Croatian priests Bilobrik, Dragano-
vik and Dominik Mandi^ —
had devised plans for him. He was
passed along from one monastery to the next. However, at the
same time, Pavelic himself was plotting a return to power in
Yugoslavia, and he succeeded in getting a number of his followers
back into the country by way of Trieste.
The new master of Yugoslavia, Marshal Tito, was a bitter
enemy of Pavelic and his gang. Tito’s secret service penetrated
some of the Ustasa bands which were beginning to re-form in
Yugoslavia, and a trap was set to entice Pavelic and his lieutenants

to return to Yugoslavia. The terrorist preferred to remain safe in

an Italian monastery, but he sent most of his lieutenants across

the frontier. They were immediately arrested and all were

hanged.
Pavelic had lost the struggle. His funds were exhausted, Yugo-
slav commandos were searching for him all over Italy, and Tito
had sworn vengeance on him. It was time to flee again.
When Pavelic arrived in Argentina in 1948 disguised as a priest,

the other “padres” with him were the members of his one-time
government and a few other faithful followers. The only authen-
128 THE AVENGERS

tic priest involved, Brother Dominik Mandig, had stayed behind

in Rome and continued to arrange the escape of other Fascists
and Nazis to Spain and America.
Pavelic and his gang began building up a Croatian nationalist
movement in Argentina, where some 12,000 Croat refugees had
settled. They formed an exiled Ustasa government, the Us-
tachka Vlada and among its members were notorious criminals
,

such as Kwaternik and Vrangig. Several Croat farming settle-

ments were established in the area of the Parana river, in the
north of Argentina. A number up in
of organizations were set
Buenos Aires and several newspapers were founded. Contact was
made with other Croatian movements in exile, particularly those
in Spain. By persuasion, if necessary by force, Pavelic and his
aides soon gained control of all the Croat associations and organi-
zations scattered about the world. By Pavelic’s orders, attacks
were made on Yugoslav embassies and consulates —but he himself
remained in the background.
Pavelic wrote anti-Tito articles for the exiles’ paper Hrvatska ,

using the pen name Mrzlodolski. According to some accounts,

which I have been unable to verify, Pavelic was entrusted by the
Peron government with the reorganization of the Argentine
Secret Service. There no doubt, however, that highly placed
is

persons in Argentina were perfectly aware of Pavelic’s presence,

and that he had useful connections in the police, the secret serv-
ice, and the administration. When, on July 21, 1949, Silvano

Santander rose in Parliament to ask the government: “Is it true

that the Nazi chief of the Croatian Government arrived here on
board the Andrea Gritti disguised as a priest and holding a
,

forged passport?’’ he was not given a reply.

In 1951 Pavelic came out into the open and addressed a meeting
of his followers, under his real name. The Cold War and then the
Korean War had given new hope to all anti-Communists, what-
ever their past crimes, and Pavelic thought he too no longer had
anything to fear. He appeared to be right. On July 16, 1951, the
Yugoslav government applied for his extradition, only to meet
with a sharp refusal from Argentina: “After making intensive
inquiries, this country’s authorities have not been able to identify
The Spider Odessa and Monastery Routes
, ,
129

any person answering to the name of Ante Pavelic, and they

cannot therefore comply with this request.”
This was with Peron in power, he
a great success for Pavelic;
could rest easy. When the dictator of Argentina fell, however,
the Yugoslav government returned to the attack. But inquiries
between October 1955 and January 1956 by police chief Sierra
resulted in a report that there was no foundation to the charges
made against Pavelic. Matters remained there, so Tito gave ap-
proval for more direct measures.
Toward the end of January 1957 a small group of Yugoslavs
arrived inconspicuously in Argentina. They had all fought with
Tito’s partisans during the war, and some of them had lost their

families as a result of Ustasa bands. Their mission was clear —to

find and execute the ex-head of the Croatian national government.
They do not seem to have had much difficulty in carrying out
the preliminary stage of their mission.
Pavelic could not have noticed that he was being followed. He
was working Buenos Aires as a building contractor, and lived
in
with his wife and sons in the suburb of Lomas del Palomar, at
No. 653 Calle del Aviador Mermoz.
The Yugoslavs must have been rather disappointed to find that
instead of a giant of a man with a hard face and cruel mouth they
had to deal with an old man with thin hair and a graying mous-
tache. On April 10, 1957, Pavelic presided at a meeting of his
followers to celebrate the sixteenth anniversary of the founding
of the Croatian state. He left the meeting at about nine o’clock
and walked home through almost deserted streets. When he
reached the corner of Calle del Aviador Mermoz, a tall lean
man with a wide-brimmed hat pulled down over his eyes stepped
from the shadow of a doorway. Six shots rang out. Having
emptied his revolver at Pavelic, the man ran to a crossroads
where an accomplice was waiting in a car with its engine run-
ning. He got in, and they drove off.

Pavelic was lying in a pool of blood, but he was not dead. Only
two of the bullets had hit him —one and the other
in the shoulder
in the back. People who had heard the shots came running up.
Pavelic, still conscious, had strength enough to ask to be taken to
130 THE AVENGERS

the Syrian-Lebanese hospital. He gave the name of this hospital

because it was the only one he knew of where there was no risk
of falling into the hands of a Jewish doctor.
So he survived the attack. The doctors decided it was not safe
to remove the bullets, and after a few days he was sent home,
where he was given police protection. In addition, there was
always one of his faithful followers outside his door, who gave
the Fascist salute to visitors who came to enquire after their
leader’s health.
The Union of Croatian Societies in Argentina issued a com-
munique declaring its solidarity with Dr. Pavelic in his fight
against Communism. While the Croatian Cultural Club an-
nounced that “the attempt on Dr. Pavelic’s life was directed not
only against the Croat community here, but also against the
whole Croat nation at present under the yoke of the Red Fascists
in Belgrade.” Pavelic, for his part, accused the Yugoslav Embassy
of organizing the attack. “I lost the war, so I’m called a war
criminal,” he declared. “If I’d won the war, I would have been a
hero. . . . I’m accused of being an assassin, but that’s all lies and
fabrication. I’m merely a man fighting for the freedom of the
Croats against the Communists. Nothing more than that!”
The attempt had failed, but Ante Pavelic’s name and photo-
graph were prominently displayed in all the newspapers. So six
days later, on April 6, the Argentine Ambassador in Belgrade
1

was summoned by the Foreign Under-Secretary and presented

with another request for Pavelic’s extradition. This time, of
course, it was difficult for the Argentine authorities to maintain
that Pavelic was not in the country. However, Pavelic still had
some good friends in high places. On April 23 the Buenos Aires
newspapers announced that a legal commission was studying the
request for extradition.. At eleven o’clock on the morning of
April 25, the police arrived at Pavelic’s house. The senior officer
held an arrest warrant, signed by the Minister for the Interior.
Mara Pavelic opened the door. “My
husband is not at home,”
she told the police. Even though he was under police observation,
in principle at least, and still had two bullets in his body, Pavelic
had managed to get away. He reached Montevideo, across the
estuary of the River Plate, and from the Uruguayan capital he
The Spider Odessa 2m d Monastery Routes
, , 131
«

sailed for Spain, eventually finding a safe refuge in Madrid

through the good offices of other Croat exiles.

Despite great efforts by the Yugoslavs, they never succeeded in

getting on his track again. Not until eighteen months later did the
name of Ante Pavelic again figure in the world’s press. He died in
Madrid on December 29, 1959, from the effects of the injuries
received in the attack on him in Buenos Aires. He was seventy
—
years old an age attained by few of his victims.
13

BORMANN’S TREASURE

By means were all of the thousands of Germans who arrived

?io

in South America during the immediate postwar years war crim-

inals, ex-SS officers, or Gestapo agents. There were many tech-

nicians, engineers, and scientists who had decided that Germany

offered no prospect for a successful career for many years to
come, and so had left to try their luck in a new country. Na-
turally, they were drawn to countries with large German colonies
already existing, such as Argentina, Brazil, Chile, and Paraguay.
And before long, the new had doubled or trebled the
arrivals
population of places like Formosa, Corrientes, Posadas, Paso de
los Libres, Hohenau, Blumenau, Encarnacion, Iguacu, and Eldo-
rado.
Peron’s fall from power in 1955 caused some anxiety among
the Nazis in Argentina. Some thought it wise to seek another
refuge and left for other South American countries, or for Spain,
the Middle East, and even the United States. Others preferred to
retreat into the interior, to make a new home in the arid uplands,
the empty pampas, or the jungle, far from civilization. And while
the new leaders of Argentina continued the policy of friendliness
towards the Nazi refugees, the change of regime had caused
much worry and uneasiness.
The wide pampas stretching away from the Parana river,
where the frontier of Argentina meets those of Paraguay and
Brazil, became a kind of German preserve. About 1,500 Germans
moved much farther inland, to the Matto Grosso in the heart of
Brazil. This huge and almost unexplored tropical jungle, with its
luxuriant vegetation and steaming swamps, inhabited by primitive
Indian tribes, was accessible only by a few barely navigable rivers
and two very rough roads. The Brazilian Government made
132
Bormann's Treasure «
1
33

grants of land, and the Germans began clearing the jungle. It was
a hard life in this region inhospitable to man, but the remoteness
and wildness of the Matto Grosso guaranteed safety. The ap-
proach of any stranger from the outside world was known sev-
eral days in advance. If it seemed advisable, the German settler
with an uneasy conscience could disappear into the jungle for a
time, or slip away to a friend’s farm or even across the frontier.
The Matto Grosso had been a place of refuge for a colorful mob
of fugitives —escaped convicts and wanted criminals —long be-
fore the Nazis arrived. No — almost had
one asked questions all

been responsible for few deaths. And

a God forsaken in this
country there were only two rules to observe — don’t squeal on
others,and help one another against the law, as in any under-
world fraternity. Both suited the Nazis very well.
There were nevertheless comparatively few Germans who
chose to hide away in the lonely places of the interior. Most of
them towns where the population still admired the
settled in
German organizing ability and sense of order. A number of im-
migrants did not even bother to change their names or hide their
identity in any way. New arrivals were taken in hand and helped
by their compatriots. Moshe Pearlman has explained the process:
“The refugees were given financial assistance by local Nazi
. . .

clubs and societies and were helped to obtain identification cards,

work permits, and a place to live. At the same time a semi-official
labor exchange undertook to find work for them in offices or
factories run by friends. Sometimes the newcomers ‘got on’ and
in their turn were able to offer work to later arrivals.”*
At first, these “reception committees” acted independently of
one another, but before long the German love of method pre-
vailed and two organizations were created. The German capital
transferred to Argentina during the war and the funds received
later enabled these organizations to acquire shares in industrial
concerns and even to set up firms of their own in order to give
work to the new arrivals. The was CAPRI
largest of these firms
( Compania Argentina para Realizaciones Industrials ), whose
managing director was a German, Karl Fuldner. It built electrical
power stations under government contract and also carried out
* La Longue Chasse. Editions France-Empire, Paris, 1961.
 .

*34 THE AVENGERS

development work, in particular in the Tucuman region. Another

firm, employing a great many German refugees, and whose activ-
ities seemed rather suspect was I API (Institute? Argentino para la

Profnocion del Inter cambio )

In addition, there were one or two highly secret little work-
shops where false documents were produced under the guidance
of experts who had been in the Gestapo or the special services of
the Reich. One was situated at No. 2229 Calle Mazone at San
Isidro, near Buenos Aires. Two ex-Gestapo men, H. Theiss and F.
Adam, were in charge of making false identification cards and
even certificates of denazification.
In time, these organizations established connections with simi-
lar ones in other South American countries, and also with Spider,

Odessa, Stille Hilfe and the Rudel Club in West Germany.

,

Hans Ulrich Rudel, an ace of the Luftwaffe who had flown

2,350 missions during the war, played a prominent part in estab-
lishing these links. In September i960, at a judicial enquiry, he
admitted that from 1948 to 1955 he had presided over a Kamera-
denwerk, a “friendly circle,” in Argentina, whose object was to
help “so-called war criminals.” Rudel had also had a part in estab-
lishing the “impregnable fortress.” Since he had not been charged
with war crimes, he had experienced no difficulty in going to
Argentina. Once there, he did not forget his former friends. He
also rendered considerable service to his adopted country by his
highly important work at the Aerotechnical Institute at Cordoba.
He had several other ex-Luftwaffe pilots working with him,
notably Walter Baumbach and Adolf Galland. The latter had
begun his service career in the Condor Legion during the Spanish
Civil War and ended it in 1945 in command of the Luftwaffe
fighter squadrons. Galland went by the name of Hermann in
Argentina, and for a time lived in the Jardines del Palomar.
The most valuable recruit to the Argentine aircraft industry
was undoubtedly Kurt Tank, who had been chief engineer at
Fokke-Wulf. He arrived from Switzerland with a passport in the
name of Professor K. Mathias, and went to live at Cordoba. Tank
was made head of the technical section of the Research Institute,
and was eventually responsible for Argentina’s first jet plane, the
Pulqui-2, which was produced by the Peron factory at Cordoba.
Bormann's Treasure r
35
«

Like several other German technicians and scientists who settled

in Argentina, Tank had not been politically involved in the Nazi
rule.
Neither had Rudel any reason to fear the avengers’ attention,
and he soon began to dream of a Nazi revival with himself play-
ing a prominent part. He expressed these ideas" in several books,
and his blustering reached its highest level when the Nacht Ex-
press announced on the front page of its issue for November 21,
1952: “Rudel has been proclaimed Fuehrer. .” Fortunately, . .

that particular Fuehrer has not headed any Reich, but Rudel is
still enjoying good health and prosperity.

One Nazi personality who did not fear attention once he ar-
rived in South America was Professor Johannes von Leers, who
had been an SS Hauptsturm-Fuehrer in Amt IV of the Reich
security office. He had held a distinguished position in the univer-
sity world before becoming head of Goebbels’ anti- Jewish
propaganda. He had gotten his foot on the ladder of the Nazi
hierarchy by publishing a booklet entitled Die Juden sehen Dich
an (The Jews are Looking at You ) —
liberally illustrated with
photos of such well-known people as L. Feuchtwanger, Emil
Ludwig, Albert Einstein, and Konrad Adenauer, captioned “Not
yet hanged.”
The total warfare waged by this distinguished fanatic against
the Jews had not ended with the collapse of the Third Reich. In
Argentina, he soon resumed his anti-Semitic attacks and Nazi
propaganda, writing for Der W eg ,
newspaper founded in 1946.
a
He sometimes signed his articles with his real name, sometimes
with the pen name “Dr. Euler.” In addition, he worked ener-
getically at organizing a worldwide secret Nazi network. From
his home at No. 863 Calle Martin Haedo in Vicente Lopez he
carried onvoluminous correspondence letters, secret reports,
a —
directives —
with confederates scattered about the world. He had
meetings with all the Nazi leaders who had fled to South America
— Bormann, Eichmann, Mengele. His anonymous correspondents
in South American countries, all always ready to help a Nazi
criminal in difficulty, became known as “Von Leers’s men.”
They, like Rudel’s men and those who worked for CAPRI,
1 36 THE AVENGERS

Spider, Odessa, had plenty to do*. The flood of German immi-

grants, though it varied according to the circumstances of the
moment, showed no signs of letting up. The ex-Gestapo chief,
Heinrich "Mueller, and the notorious Franz Stangl of Treblinka
extermination camp, made only a fleeting appearance and then
disappeared, covering their tracks completely. In October 1948,
the special Gestapo agent Godofredo Sanstede and his right-hand
man, Heinrich Gustav Jurges, landed in Argentina under the
names of Frederico Pahl and Jose Villanueva. The two had fol-
lowed Bormann’s example and faked their own deaths before
leaving Europe. That same year, Dr. Hans Pleffelmann, men-
tioned earlier, and Dr. Klingenfuss, another notorious war crimi-
nal, also reached Argentina, while the SS officer responsible for

the massacre of 50,000 Czechs, Jan Durcansky, had been em-

ployed by the immigration service at Buenos Aires since 947 1

This influx of ex-Nazis did not escape comment by some

Argentine politicians. In 1949 Silvano Santander roundly accused
the government of harboring several dozen Nazi criminals in
various state departments.
“Will the government say,” asked Santander, “whether Dr. H.
Theiss, who was employed by IAPI although he had no national
identification card, is now working for the federal police? And is

he not the same Dr. Theiss who was a Gestapo agent in Ger-
many? Is it a fact that his assistants in his police job are the
Germans F. Adam, H. Richner, and J. Paecht? And are these men
naturalized Argentinians or not?
“Is it not a fact that Dr. Hans Koch, of German nationality,
has a position with IAPI?
“Is it not a fact that persons of German nationality who ar-
rived in this country in 1947 are employed in the Ministry of
Transport, and that their names are Francisco Schulte, Waif art
Kurt Kunner,
Schlickting, Ernesto Stamann, Guillermo Banike,
Egon Bonner, Alberto Wuisner, Radu Bratesca Huber, Carlos
Keller, Cristian Smith,Guillermo Tigges, Karl Kallus, Werner
Jauhs, Eric Lipperheide, Eusebio Sticts, Enrique Guhelle, and
others besides?
“It is not two men of German nationality, Paul
a fact that
Wuttkae and Kaethu Muller, who were deported from Argentina
Bormann's Treasure r
37
*

on June 13, 1946, for espionage activities on behalf of the Nazis,

returned here on the Ccmtuaria ?”
Silvano Santander’s accusations contained a few minor inac-
curacies, but were basically well founded. They drew no re-
sponse from the government.

Large sums were drawn from the Nazi hoard in Argentina to

finance the organizations that helped the fugitives from Germany,
but much larger sums still remained available to a few fortunate
people. This caused bitter private feuds and intrigue that led to a
number of mysterious deaths.
Four names are bound up with the story of the Nazi treasure in
South America: Heinrich Doerge, Ricardo von Leute, Ricardo
Staud, and Ludwig Freude.
Doerge had been a close associate of Dr. Hjalmar Schacht, who
had built up the economic strength of the Reich. During the war,
Doerge had been sent on several missions to Latin America, and
was even appointed adviser to the Central Bank of Argentina. His
name was on the list of war criminals to be tried at Nuremberg,
and both the United States and Great Britain applied for his
extradition. But when the Highland Monarch sailed from Buenos
Aires on January 14, 1946, with a hundred extradited Nazis on
board, Heinrich Doerge was not among them. The Argentine
government had raised legal objections to his extradition.
In 1949 Doerge was found murdered in a Buenos Aires.
street in
The inquiry into the circumstances of his death was never made

Doerge had played major part in hiding away the German

a
funds in Argentina. The chief Nazi agent in South America dur-
ing the war, Ludwig Freude, had deposited 37,660,000 pesos with
an Argentine bank in the name of Doerge and others. Among the
other names on the deposit slip was that of Von Leute, who had
been the manager of the Banco Aleman Transatlantico in Buenos
Aires during the war. As a consequence of information sent by
Von Leute to Bormann, the latter had given orders in May 1944
for the resumption of the transfer of gold and securities from
Germany to Argentina. And it was Von Leute who had held the
keys of the seven safes at the Deutsche Bank when, in February
138 THE AVENGERS

1944, 1
15 million pesos’ worth of. gold and silver were stored in
them.
In 1950, Von Leute and Freude and Stand managed
his friends

all this Nazi wealth. In December of that year Von Leute was

found dead in Buenos Aires. The circumstances of his death were

never properly established.
According to Silvano Santander, Staud’s turn was not long in
coming. He was the managing director of the Lahusen and Staud
Estancias Company, which owned the estancia in Patagonia used
as a base for the landing of crates of valuables from U-boats in

July 1945. Staud, too, died mysteriously.

This left Ludwig Freude as the last man to hold the funds
deposited with the Deutsche Bank. When Argentina broke off
diplomatic relations with Germany in 1944, Freude had become
the Reich’s unofficial ambassador in Buenos Aires. The corre-
spondence he had with General Faupel November 1944 shows
in
was responsible for hiding
that he away the German wealth.
“Ludwig Freude died from drinking poisoned coffee,” Silvano
Santander told me.
But what happened to all the treasure? Some of it appears to
have fallen into the hands of a few people who have taken refuge
with a German colony in the Matto Grosso. Some more of it may
have been transferred to Chile and put at the disposal of a Nazi
secret society. But those amounts would have been comparatively
small.
For the greater part of the treasure was handed over in 1948 to
the man who considered it his rightful property —Martin Bor-
mann, alias Juan Gomez.
 «

14

IN PURSUIT OF MARTIN BORMANN A

One day an Italian ,

Dr. Pino Frezza ,
called at the Italian Em-
bassy in Buenos Aires in a state of great agitation to say that
he had just seen Bormann at close quarters. Dr. Frezza had been
one of the officials to accompany Mussolini on a state visit to
Berlin, and he had spoken to Bormann on several occasions at the
various receptions. There was no doubt at all in his mind that he
had just seen Bormann again in Buenos Aires.
A report was made, but not followed up. However, a copy of
it came into the hands of the Jewish organizations in Argentina.

They gave the alarm, and inquiries were made at the various
places in Buenos Aires where Bormann might be found. It was
—
much too late of course the bird had flown. The great amount
of money at Bormann’s disposal gave him complete freedom of
movement, and he went into hiding in the Parana area on the
Argentine frontier, where he knew he could rely on the colonies
of Germans and anti-Communist Croats and Poles.
Bormann remained there undisturbed until 1951. Information
then reached him that secret service agents of several countries
had just landed in Argentina, and that these professionals would
not be long in getting on his track. Bormann at once crossed the
frontier and disappeared into one of the German colonies scat-
tered about the vast territory of Brazil, from Santa Catarina to
the Matto Grosso and the Samson valley.
He might well have stayed somewhere in those wide expanses
for a very long time, if an incident had not occurred in Spain.
The person basically responsible for Bormann being flushed out
of hiding was Von Leers, who loved to write long, detailed let-

ters.

It happened that some French secret agents were tailing a

H9
140 THE AVENGERS

courier of the Spider organization, an ex-Nazi and SS officer, and

at Madrid airport they succeeded without
in taking his suitcase
his noticing. They searched it and then put it back, having taken

photographs of some documents they had found in it. When they

examined the photographs, they discovered that several were of
letters written by Von Leers. In one he had mentioned that Bor-
mann was and hiding somewhere in Brazil.
alive
In Paris, a certain Monsieur F., a Jew closely connected with
the French Secret Service, heard about Von Leers’s letter and
decided to act.

I interviewed Monsieur F. in 1966 and he told me his whole

story. “I was a member of the Heruth party and had belonged to
the Irgim organization in Israel,” he began. “As soon as I had set
eyes on thedocument about Bormann’s presence in Brazil, I asked
Heruth to send me to South America as its representative. I in-
formed some of my friends in Israel of the real reason for my
wanting to go. Heruth agreed to my suggestion, and I arrived in
Buenos Aires early in 1952.”
Monsieur F., tall, plump, and bald, is a man no one would take
for a Jew. In South America he made out that he was a German
— he speaks the language fluently and without accent. He was, of
course, well provided with false identification papers and other
documents.
once traveled up to Sao Paulo, where there is a large
“I at
German colony. My intention was to make contact with some of
its members and through them work my way into Nazi circles. It

took me a month before I managed to make the acquaintance of a

few Nazis. showed them papers and documents that said I had
I

been sent to Latin America by some big industrial firms in Ger-

many which were managed by ex-Nazis. I then explained that my
bosses in Germany had .made a secret arrangement with Bormann
some years previously, and under it they were to transfer large
funds to Brazil for investment in new industries which would
provide work for German refugees. But they needed Bormann’s
agreement in order to set things in motion. So I had to have a
meeting with him at all costs.
“
‘Not at all costs,’ said the two Germans to whom I had told
—
my story. ‘It’ll only cost you $10,000. That’s all $10,000!’ ”
In Pursuit of Martin Bormann

The two were ex-officers of the Wehrmacht who worked for a

firm making electrical components in Sao Paulo. Monsieur F. was
in no position to pay $10,000; nevertheless, he promised the two
men he would. “My chief aim was to meet Bormann face to
face,” he explained. “We’d see about the rest later.”
The two agreed to take him to Bormann. They may have been
acting in good faith, but Bormann was in the habit of frequently
changing and the journey of the three developed into
his hideout,
a chase. Their first stop was at Blumenau, a small German colony
in the state of Santa Catarina. When they arrived at the place
where Bormann was supposed to be living, they learned that he
had just left for Porto Alegre. They went to that town, only to
find that Bormann had stayed twenty-four hours and then gone
to Bahia, some thousands of miles away in the north of Brazil.
Monsieur F. did not give up. Fie chartered a small plane and
flew to Bahia with the two Germans. But Bormann was still elu-
sive. From Bahia the scent led to other towns in northern Brazil,
and Joao Pessoa the two Germans called on a friend, another
at
German, who was on good terms with the local police chief.
“Bormann was here yesterday,” this friend told the three pur-
suers. “Fie even went to the police for some official papers. I
think I can fix things for you to see the police card on him.”
FFe took the three to see the police chief, and a little later
Monsieur F. had the card on Bormann in his hands. It was proof
of the ex-Reichsleiter’s recent presence in the town, for a photo-
graph was affixed to it.

“A deep emotion came over me,” Monsieur F. recounted. “It

was Bormann’s photograph Apparently he hadn’t at-
all right.
tempted to have his features modified by plastic surgery. Oh, I
could swear it was Bormann! The card was not in that name, of
course. Fie had given himself a Jewish name, Eliezer Goldstein!”
The card gave Bormann’s destination as Rio de Janeiro. Mon-
sieur F. went to the air companies’ offices and checked the lists of
passengers recently flown out of Joao Pessoa. Fie discovered that
Bormann-Goldstein had not in fact gone to Rio de Janeiro but to
Manaus, a town far up the Amazon.
“Unfortunately, I did not have enough money left to carry on
the chase. I told the two Germans that I was still prepared to pay
H 2 THE AVENGERS

$10,000 to find Bormann, but that I hadn’t the means to go on

pursuing him from town to town all over South America. I gave
them the address of the hotel in Rio, the Nuovo Mundo, where I
was going to stay, so that they could get in touch with me. When
I got to Rio I wrote and told my superiors in Israel all about the

problem and asked them to send some men to continue the chase,
now that I was sure Bormann was still alive.
“While I was in Rio I made a great blunder. A Jewish organi-
zation asked me to give a talk on the relations between Israel and
West Germany. I agreed to do this, after being assured that the
meeting would be confined to members of the organization and
that it would not be advertised. But what do you think hap-
pened? The day afterwards, the leading newspaper in Brazil, O
Globo gave a full account of my lecture and, of course, my
,

name. The game was up.”

And that very morning, Monsieur F. received a telephone call
at his hotel from the two Germans who had traveled with him in
search of Bormann.
u
Du schmutzige Jude /” came the voice of one of them. “You
dirty Jew! We know who you are now. We’ll get you!”
There was nothing left for Monsieur F. to do in Brazil. His
friends in Israel showed no sign of sending someone to take over,
so he returned to Europe bitterly disappointed.
Martin Bormann had been warned that determined avengers
were on his trail. He cautiously returned to his hideout in the
Matto Grosso and lay low for the next few years, probably think-
—
ing that he had been forgotten. It was almost true almost.
 «

15

ISLAM TO THE AID OE THE REICH A

The Latin American countries were not the only ones that were
friendly toward the Nazis, who held out a helping hand, and
offered refuge. The Arab countries helped them too.
A typical case was that of SS Standarten-Fuehrer (Colonel)
Walter Rauff.
Before the building of gas chambers, one system used for large-
scale massacre was known as “the gas vans.” The inside of a truck
was hermetically sealed and the exhaust pipe conducted into it; the
truck was filled with Jews, and it set off for their burial place.
For they were all dead from suffocation in a few minutes.
These mobile gas chambers were most efficient. In a few
months, 97,000 Jews were dead thanks to the three vans in the
special unit. Walter Rauff was the officer responsible for this
success.
He has given an account of what happened to him after the
war:
“I was taken prisoner by the Americans on April 30, 1945. I
spent the next twenty months in a POW camp at Rimini, where I
was interrogated several times by British or American Intelli-
gence officers. I escaped from the camp on December 26, 1946,
and made my way to Naples. There, a Catholic priest helped me
get to Rome, and I stayed for eighteen months in various monas-
teries. I taught French and arithmetic at the orphanage in the Via
Pia in Rome. My family was still in the Russian zone of Ger-
many, and with the help of priests I was able to have them join
me in Rome. I had just signed a contract with the Syrian gov-
ernment, and went to Damascus as technical adviser to the secret

police and the bodyguard of the head of state. I remained in

Damascus until 1949. . .
.”

H3
 —
r
44 THE AVENGERS

This instance of Arab hospitality was by no means exceptional.

Friendly relations had long existed between the Nazi Party and
the Arab world. Several years before World War II, the Mufti of
Jerusalem had seen Hitler, in his hatred of the Jews and his
hostilitytowards the British, as a powerful ally. When war broke
out, the Mufti had gone to Berlin and soon began broadcasting to
the Arabs in the Middle East, inciting them to commit acts of
sabotage and terrorism against the Allies. The situation in the
Middle East was very fluid, and the Mufti’s appeals met with
some response. An uprising in Iraq almost brought that country
into the war on Germany’s side. Arab spies in the pay of the
Mufti reported on British troop movements. Arab commandos
prevented small parties of Jews who had escaped death in Ger-
many from entering Palestine. In Cairo the crowds were prepar-
ing to welcome Rommel and his Afrika Korps advancing across
Libya toward the Nile.
Meanwhile the Mufti was visiting eastern regions occupied by
the victorious Germans, where there were considerable Muslim
populations, and as a result was able to supply Hitler with two
divisions of volunteers and a few other units. One of the Mufti’s
Nazi friends conducted him on a tour of Auschwitz. The friend’s
name was Adolf Eichmann. The Mufti was favorably impressed,
so much so that he later told Himmler: “I hope you will lend me
Eichmann after the victory. He will be very useful to us, with his
methods, for applying the Final Solution in Palestine.”
When the Nazis lost, the Mufti’s hopes were dashed, but he
was not a man to give up easily. He started on another war
against the State of Israel, even before it officially existed. He
naturally counted on aid from his Nazi friends. A number of ex-
officers of the Afrika Korps were given employment with the
Egyptian Army on very lucrative terms. Other German Army
officers who had escaped or been released from camps in POW
the Middle East offered their services to the Syrian Government.
Arab agents were sent to Germany and Austria to organize the
smuggling of arms and spare parts to Arab countries, as well as an
escape route for Nazis to reach Naples, from where they were
taken by sea to Syrian or Egyptian ports.
In March 1948, David Ben-Gurion, the future Prime Minister
Islam to the Aid of the Reich H5
«

of Israel, noted in his diary: “Our secret service has just dis-
covered an underground escape route for Nazis to reach Arab
countries. The Arabs are particularly interested in Muslims who
served with the German Army and in specialists and officers
releasedfrom Allied internment camps. The escape route has its
headquarters in Rome and its cover name is the ‘Muslim Relief
”
Service.’
During the Israeli War of Independence, which lasted until the
spring of 1949, ex-German Army officers, technicians, and no-
torious Nazis continued to arrive in the Arab capitals. The man-
ner of their recruitment varied but was always cleverly camou-
Simon Wisenthal
flaged. has written about one unusual method:
“The Syrian Embassy Rome
had opened a recruiting office
in
that copied those of the French Foreign Fegion. I learned that
the French sold men who had enlisted in the Foreign Fegion to
the Arabs for $350 each. They were handed over at an Italian
port. The profit for the Frenchmen running this racket was the
$350 per recruit less the advance on pay when he enlisted in the
Fegion. Needless to say, when this racket came to light, the
French officials involved in it were brought before a disciplinary
tribunal.”
The SS General Oscar Dirlewanger, wanted by the Polish
government for the murder of more than 30,000 people, reached
Egypt in a most unusual manner. Shortly after he had been cap-
tured by French troops at the end of the war, he supposedly died
(June 7, 1945 at 7:30 p.m.). A few years later, his death certifi-
cate was produced at an inquiry. A precise statement of the time
of death seemed odd, and an exhumation was ordered. The coffin
—
was opened and contained the body of a young man with
eleven bullet wounds in him.
According to a well-informed source, Dirlewanger had joined
the French Foreign Fegion together with five or six fellow offi-
cers. Their unit was sent to join the French forces in Indochina,
as they had planned, in order to carry out the second phase of
their escape. When the troop ship was passing through the Suez
Canal the six Germans dived overboard and swam to the Egyp-
tian shore. Dirlewanger became technical adviser to the Egyptian
High Command and changed his name to Hassan Souleiman,
146 THE AVENGERS

while his faithful mpanion Eichenberger took the name of

Habib El Taraki.
—
Another batch of arrivals in Egypt; though by more com-
—
monplace means included General Wilhelm Fahrmbacher, an
artillery specialist; Colonel de Bouche, an armaments expert;
Colonel Gerhard Mertens, a paratroop commander; and a secret
service chief named Zolling. They were followed by a group of
about sixty ex-army officers who were appointed to different
branches of the Egyptian Army. Among them were a tank spe-
cialist who had been on General Guderian’s staff, some test pilots,

paratroop commanders, and members of the crack SS Division

Das Reich which had carried out the horrible massacre of the
,

whole population of the French village of Oradour-sur-Glane.

Notorious Nazi war criminals who took their knowledge and
skill to Egypt included Willi Brenner, who had organized the

Mauthausen concentration camp; Leopold Gleim, who had been

chief of the Gestapo in Warsaw and was running from a death
sentence; Heinrich Sellmann, lately the Gestapo chief at Ulm;
and his Dusseldorf colleague, Joachim Daemling (he was given
the task of organizing the Egyptian secret service on the lines of
the Reich Central Security Office). Louis Heiden, the biographer
of Hitler, busied himself in arranging for an Arabic edition of
Mein Kampf. Propagandists such as Dr. Werner Weltschale,
Baron von Harder, and Hans Appiers resumed their anti-Semitic
outpourings, now directed against the State of Israel.
This fine lot were joined in 1951 by Dr. Wilhelm Voss, who
had been head of the Skoda works in Czechoslovakia during the
German occupation. The Egyptian military leaders put him in
charge of the production of tactical rockets.
Many of these German mercenaries adopted Arab names.
Leopold Gleim became Naam El Nashar, Bernard Bender and
Heinrich Sellmann became respectively Ben Salah and Hamide
Souleiman, while Karl Luder took the name Abdel Kader. Some
of these Germanic Arabs even converted to Islam.
The Syrians did not lag behind the Egyptians in welcoming
Nazi fugitives; in some respects they were even more hospitable.
Their embassies and consulates in Switzerland and Italy main-
tained excellent relations with the Nazi underground organiza-
Islam to the Aid of the Reich « *47

tions. For Odessa had its headquarters at the Syrian Em-

a time,

bassy in Rome. Ex-Nazis were provided with Syrian passports,

which enabled them to travel around Europe and recruit spe-
cialists —
whether in armaments or in the Final Solution who —
were then put on the route to Damascus.
Early in 1949, a group of Jews successfully put the French
authorities on the track of seven SS officers, including a general,
on their way to Syria. But a great many more reached their
destination. A group of thirty army specialists landed in Syria in

1948, headed by Major General Strachwitz, who had commanded

an armored division of the Wehrmacht. A certain Lehmann, act-
ing for the dictator of Syria, Housni Zaim, recruited a number of
ex-SS officers, test pilots, and tank specialists, with a view to
forming units of the Syrian Army on the lines of the Waffen SS.
And Walter Rauff, as already mentioned, was engaged for his
specialized knowledge. In 1950 another group of thirty Nazis
arrived in Syria. Many of these men were of little importance,
but among them were a few war criminals such as Franz Rade-
macher and Alois Brunner, who thought they were safe enough
when they set foot in Damascus.

Von Leers, the man whose indiscreet letters had almost led to
the capture of Bormann, left Argentina soon after the overthrow
of the Peron regime. All trace of him was lost for some months.
But in August 1956, a British journalist in Cairo, Anne Sharpley,
Department”
called at the Ministry of Propaganda. In the “Israeli
she saw a pink-faced, white-haired man and greeted him with
“Good morning, Professor von Leers!”
Anne Sharpley was expelled from Egypt. Von Leers told an-
other journalist: “After the fall of Peron, when Argentina was
taken over by the Jews and the clergy, the rapacious and the
crows, I came here.”
Actually, a very tempting offer had been made to him by the
Mufti of Jerusalem, who was eager to have the services of such a
forceful anti-Semite. Von Leers converted to Islam and took the
name Amin Omar von Leers. He was put in charge of anti- Jewish
propaganda, and also became Cairo correspondent of a news sheet
giving information on Africa and the Middle East, which was
148 THE AVENGERS

published at Bad Godesberg in West Germany. Needless to say,

Von Leers remained in contact with his Nazi friends in South
America, especially with their underground organization in
Chile. ^
When, in 1955, an armaments race began in the Middle East,
Nasser’s eagerness to have German army specialists became well
known to those whose Nazi records made it advisable to leave
Europe. And Egypt became the terminus of the main escape
so
routes. The stages through Italy still existed. Another route led to
Spain, to a Lock Gate that opened on to the Mediterranean. It
was at a vacation camp near Denia, a camp like many others that
had sprung up along the Costa Brava. Holiday makers could hire
boats and even large motor launches by applying to a Senor
Bremer. They did not know, of course, that Bremer was an ex-SS
officer and that the Germans they saw at the camp had not come
to Spain for the sunshine. A good many Nazis on their way to
Egypt used Denia as a transit camp. They stayed there while
Bremer’s agents contacted the Egyptians and obtained unques-
tionable assurances that Egypt would use the applicants’ unques-
tionable talents. Then the Germans thus engaged were sent off in
one of Senor Bremer’s launches, reaching Egypt by way of
North African ports. It all worked splendidly.
The German colony in Cairo thus increased over the years.
The popular meeting place, the Lowenbrau cafe on “July 26”
Street, was no longer enough to contain all of its clients.
large
The Heliopolis Sporting Club was obliged to refuse new mem-
bers. An annual Rhineland Carnival held at the Hilton Hotel was
becoming a tradition. The names of prominent new arrivals were
passed around —Dr. Franz Richter, alias Fritz Roessler, who had
been head of the Nazi Party’s Central Office of Propaganda; Dr.
Hans Eisele, one of the “specialists in sterilization” at Buchen-
wald concentration camp, who escaped from Germany in 1958
while his trial was going on; Ludwig Zind, an anti-Semitic
teacher; scientists such as Professor Paul Goercke, an electronics
expert who had been at Peenemuende, and Eugen Saenger, a
specialist in jet propulsion.
Nearly all had wandered about the world since the collapse of
Islam to the Aid of the Reich 149
«

the Third Reich. And now that they hadfound a haven by the
sun-drenched banks of the Nile they were ready to use their
talents once again, on behalf of their Arab masters and against the
Jews in Israel.
 —

16
*

THE SPANISh SANCTUARY

South America and the Middle East were lands of exile far from
home, with hard climates and often difficult conditions. But there
was a country in Europe itself whose bonds with Nazi Germany
and Fascist Italy had been forged even before World War II
Spain. Franco’s victory had been gained with the help of planes,
tanks, and troops sent by Hitler and Mussolini, and the Spanish
dictator could do no less than provide a haven for Nazis and
Fascists when the tide turned against them.
One of the prominent figures during the Nazi occupation of
Europe who spent happy days in Spain after 1945 was the notori-
ous Belgian Fascist leader Feon Degrelle.
He was a typical collaborator. Before the war he had been one
of the leaders of the Belgian Fascist movement Rex, whose con-
siderable influence had more than once swung Belgian policy in
favor of German interests. He was a handsome man and a per-
suasive speaker, said to have left a trail of broken hearts be-

hind him. The war helped to turn this Casanova into a hero of the
greater Reich and brought him a row of medals. He began the
war in the ranks and ended it as the general commanding the
Walloon Division, which fought on the Russian front.
When he was summoned to Berlin to be decorated with the
Ritterkreuz by Hitler in person, he was paid the greatest com-
pliment that an ardent Nazi could hope for from the Fiihrer: “If
I had a son, I should want him to be like you!”

Actually, it seems that the distinction of this handsome, smooth-

talking man was due more to his blind allegiance to Nazism than
to his military prowess.
The war was over for Degrelle when
he lost 90 per cent of his
Division defending the line of the Oder. There was no time to
150
The Spanish Sanctuary “
15

waste. From Stettin, made his way across northern Germany

he
and over the border into Denmark. He succeeded in reaching
Copenhagen and then crossing to Oslo in a motorboat. He was in
the Norwegian capital on VE Day. Luck was still with him, for
he found a Luftwaffe plane with full tanks and a crew ready for
anything that might prevent capture. The Norwegians were
celebrating the victory, and Degrelle took advantage of the dis-
order by taking off. They flew on a southwesterly course, over
the North Sea and across France, without being intercepted by
any Allied plane. When over Bordeaux they turned west, but
they were almost out of fuel and began to lose height. They
nearly succeeded in a forced landing on the fine sandy beach of
La Concha at San Sebastian, but came down in the sea. Luckily, it
was only in about five feet of water. Some Falangists dashed out
and brought the six men ashore. All of them were hurt. The
handsome Degrelle had his shoulder and feet slightly injured, but
he had reached Spain and safety.
He was still in the hospital at San Sebastian when he heard that
he had been sentenced to death in Brussels on December 14, 1945.
He was aware, too, of the many applications for his extradition
that Belgium had made. But he knew he was safe.
On August 23, 1946, the Spanish government announced that
Leon Degrelle had “left the hospital two days ago and an order
for his expulsion from the national territory had immediately
been made, in accordance with a government decision.” Yet
Degrelle had no intention of submitting to the somewhat slack
decision of the Franco government. He knew that Spain had
given sanctuary more or less openly to leading renegades such as
Horia Sima, one-time head of the pro-Nazi Romanian Govern-
ment, and the Croatian Fascist, Maks Luburic. On leaving the
hospital, Degrelle was given shelter at the pleasant hacienda of
Don Eduardo Ezquer, a well-known admirer of the Nazis. With
the help of Don Eduardo and the lovely, eccentric Duchess
Louise de Valencia, Degrelle led a comfortable life under the
name Dr. Juan Sanchez. He got in touch again with friends who
had scattered all over the world, and the hacienda soon became
one of the ports of call for fugitive Nazis on their way through
Spain to South America or the Middle East.
152 THE AVENGERS

The Falangist social welfare organization had a special “Ger-

man section,” and with its help Degrelle was soon able to orga-
nize an escape route which supplied escaping Nazis with money,
false identification papers, air or steamship tickets and, occasion-
ally, help in settling in Spain. (This organization helped Martin
Bormann when he reached Barcelona from Italy in 1946, and
Leon Degrelle is one of the very few who knows all the stages of
Bormann’s escape and is still in correspondence with him.)
Degrelle felt more and more secure as the years passed. He
embarked on various mysterious undertakings. There were reports
of his engaging in the formation and training of anti-Communist
commandos near his home in Seville. Both American and British
Intelligence were apparently aware of his activities, but thought
it best to leave him alone. Degrelle was thus imperceptibly sliding

over to the side of the “Free World,” and this proved useful to
him in business. He acquired a large share in an import-export
—
firm in Madrid which also saw to the transfer of funds between
Nazi underground organizations in Spain and Germany and their
counterparts in South America and the Middle East. This firm
had close connections with the Lucht Import and Export Com-
pany of Dusseldorf, whose general manager was Dr. Werner
Naumann, who had been named Head of Propaganda in Hitler’s
Testament.
Werner Naumann was a Nazi for whom the fall of the Reich
did not mean the end of the struggle. In Dusseldorf, he even
risked forming a “Gauleiters’ Club,” aimed at gaining power in
West Germany. When was discovered in 1953, Chancel-
the plot
lor Adenauer openly accused Leon Degrelle of supplying Nau-
mann and his followers with funds.
Degrelle was by no means dissuaded by this. He even came out
into the open, and on December 15, 1954, he publicly addressed
veterans of the “Azul Legion,” which had fought with the Ger-
mans in Russia. Three days later, the weekly paper El Esprnol
published an interview with him, and an article signed by him
appeared in Juventud the paper of the Falangist youth organiza-
,

tion.
The Belgian Government immediately renewed its demand for
the extradition of this war criminal. The Foreign Minister, Paul-
The Spanish Sanctuary *5 3
*

Henri Spaak, sent several strongly worded notes to Madrid. The

Belgian Ambassador, the Prince de Ligne, was recalled, and it
seemed likely that relations between the two countries would be
severed. But the Franco government, experienced in such mat-
ters, issued a statement similar to the one made in 1946, to the

effect that Degrelle was not in Spain. The Belgians were obliged
to accept it, and the matter rested there.

In addition to giving a home “most handsome Nazi in

to the
the world,” Spain also gave sanctuary to the “most dangerous of
—
them all” the SS commando leader Otto Skorzeny.
This giant of a man, six feet tall and weighing over two hun-
dred pounds, had bright, hard blue eyes and a scar on his face
from a slash received in a student duel. He was certainly a
dashing commando leader. The first exploit to bring his name
into prominence had been his rescue of Mussolini from the hotel
high in the Gran Sasso mountains, where the former Duce was
being held prisoner by the government. Skorzeny
Badoglio
landed his force of glider troops a hundred yards from the moun-
tain-top hotel and overcame the four hundred carabinieri guard-
ing Mussolini. The freed Fascist leader then set up a “Fascist
Republican Government” in northern Italy.
In October 1944, when the Hungarian Regent, Admiral
Horthy, was trying to surrender Hungary to the advancing Rus-
sians, Otto Skorzeny further distinguished himself by a successful

commando action to seize the citadel of Budapest and kidnap

Horthy, thus keeping Hungary in the war on the side of Ger-
many.
Skorzeny was also in action that year against Tito’s partisans.
His final assignment on a grand scale was in December 1944,
when he was given the leadership of “Operation Greif.” This was
part of the plan for the Ardennes offensive, Hitler’s last desperate
effort —
which had great initial success, taking the Americans by
surprise and deeply penetrating their front at several points.
Skorzeny had hundreds of English-speaking German soldiers
who were dressed in American uniforms and who infiltrated
in captured American tanks and jeeps behind the American lines,
cutting communications, carrying out sabotage, misdirecting mil-
*54 THE AVENGERS

and generally creating confusion. American Intelli-

itary traffic,
gence officers believed the tales told by some of the captured
Germans in American uniform, which said that some of Skor-
zeny’s desperadoes were on their way to Paris to assassinate
Eisenhower. As a result, the Supreme Commander was closely
guarded, and his double was used to divert attention.
An Allied counteroffensive drove the Germans back to their
starting line. Some 130 of Skorzeny’s men captured in American
uniforms were court-martialed and executed. Skorzeny escaped,
but his reputation as “the most dangerous Nazi” was enhanced.
He surrendered to the Americans on May 17, 1945. Some
months later he was tried as a war criminal by an American
military tribunal, but was acquitted. He was sent to a POW
camp, from which he escaped on July 25, 1948. Some reports said
that members of the Spider organization, disguised as American
officers had helped him, for they wanted him to take command.
On the other hand, there were rumors at the time that the Amer-
icans had discreetly let him go after he had agreed to work for
them as a secret agent.
In any event, one February evening in 1950 he was seen by a
reporter of Ce Soir having a glass of beer at Le Madrigal cafe on
the Champs-Elysees. It was discovered soon afterwards that he
had been staying for a time at a boardinghouse, Les Cedres, at St.

Germain-en-Laye, under the name Rolf Steiner.

He disappeared again, to turn up at Megeve, French winter
a
sports resort, then in South America and the Middle East.
Skorzeny traveled about a great deal in the 1950’s, and he met
Peron and Nasser. The secret services of the Western Powers
had good reason to believe that Skorzeny was connected with the
Spider organization, and closer inquiries were made into his activ-
ities. Some of the suspicion about him was confirmed; he was

found to be in regular correspondence with Werner Naumann,

the leader of the Nazi plot against the West German govern-
ment. He was also in contact with Bremer, the ex-SS officer who
ran the vacation camp at Denia.
Skorzeny in fact helped a number of Nazi war criminals es-
—
cape. But he was also engaged in another game gun running.
The contacts he had with troublemakers in many parts of the
The Spanish Sanctuary *55

world enabled him to make a prosperous business of it. Then,

with the money thus acquired, he turned to more peaceful and
less dangerous activities and went into commerce, living in Ma-

drid as a respectable businessman under the nafne Robert Stein-

hauer. At one time or another, several governments asked him to
train special commando units for them, but he always declined.
He went to Ireland quite frequently and eventually bought a
farm and modernized it. Since he had been acquitted of war
crimes he was free to come and go as he pleased. He published his
war memoirs, and the book met with considerable success. It was
even translated into Hebrew and published in Israel.
The most recent photographs of Skorzeny show him on his
farm in Ireland, cultivating his roses and tending his sheep.
17

THE NAZI WHO TURNED JEW

Nazi fugitives had many adventures getting to South America ,

the Middle East, or Spain. Some chose Sweden or South Africa,

and a surprising number were daring enough to settle in the
United States. But most extraordinary was the case of a man who
chose to hide away in the last country one would have ex-
pected — Israel.

In September 1949 a family of immigrants landed at Haifa.

—
They were four the father, tall and fair, the mother, and two
children. The father told the officials of the Jewish Agency that
although he was a Jew born in Argentina, was a Gentile,
his wife,
and that he wanted his two children to be brought up in the
Jewish tradition of his forefathers. He presented a valid passport
in the name of Dr. Alexander Egon Firth, medical practitioner.
He had no other papers, and said he had lost them all except the
passport. He spoke good Yiddish.
The Firth family was sent to a transit camp and then to the
new town of Ashkelon, where large, modern blocks of flats had
been built on the site of the ancient Mediterranean city of the
Philistines. The new town was short of doctors, and Firth was
given work in the Kupfit Holim the Social Security service. But
,

he stayed in it only a year, then opened a private nursing home.

The Firth family seemed to lead a very ordinary life. The two
children went primary school, and their father at-
to the local
tended the synagogue every Saturday. The mother, in the mean-
time, had adopted the Jewish religion.
However, rumors began to spread that Dr. Firth was not very
competent, that he sometimes beat his wife, and that she had tried
to kill herself. And there was the fact that he had never produced
any certificate of his qualifications, only a passport. Still, at that
156
The Nazi Who Turned Jew 1
57

time there were hundreds of thousands of people in Israel in no

better situation. And made in Europe had confirmed
inquiries
that a Dr. Alexander Egon Firth, a Jew of Austrian nationality,
had been in Theresienstadt concentration camp in Czechoslo-
vakia.
In 1953 Dr. Firth sold his home and furniture and a picture
collection that he had brought to Israel with him. Then, having
obtained a new passport from the Austrian Consulate in Tel
Aviv, he left Israel with his family and went to Argentina.
He continued for some years to write to friends in Israel. But
he seemed unable to stay in one place for long. In 1962 he left
South America and went to live in West Germany. There fate
caught up with him. That same year, a certain Frau Firth applied
to the German authorities for a widow’s pension, alleging that
her husband, Dr. Alexander Egon Firth, had been murdered by
the Nazis while in Theresienstadt concentration camp. Inquiries
were made, and the existence of the second Dr. Firth came to
light. When asked to prove his identity, he soon admitted that his
real name was Wilhelm Hermann Schmidt and that he had as-
sumed the identity of Dr. Firth, who had died in Theresienstadt
concentration camp.
The man was telling the truth, but by no means the whole
truth. An Aryan, born at Tubingen, he had joined the Nazi Party
very early, in 1933, and was the author of a booklet entitled From
Socialism to National-Socialism. He was in fact a doctor, but had
been in practice for only a year or so, in 1938-1939, in Saxony.
Previously, he had been in the Gestapo at Kassel. When war
broke out, he rejoined the Gestapo and served in Poland, Bel-
gium, Holland, Russia, and then again in Poland. While in War-
saw in 1943 he forced a rabbi to teach him Yiddish, probably
thinking that a knowledge of the language would enable him to
track down Jews more easily. Or was he, even then, considering a
cunning “conversion” should the need arise?
The crimes that Schmidt had committed were never properly
established. There was incomplete evidence that he may have
taken part in the massacre of Russian prisoners and the killing of
mental patients in Russia. It was probable, too, that he had held a
leading position on the staff of Theresienstadt camp, which
158 THE AVENGERS

would explain his taking the identity of Dr. Firth, who may have
been one of his victims. However, the West German authorities
did not pursue his case, and he was soon released from prison. He
disappeared again and his present whereabouts are unknown.
 PART THREE

THE HUNT
FOR NAZI CRIMINALS
18

THE MAN WHO

CAPTURED EICHMANN

In Israel they call him Isser —

Hakatan Little Isser. He is indeed
small, but sturdy, energetic, abounding with health and vitality.
He always holds himself straight and stiff; he has short but strong
arms, and a firm hand. He is partly bald, and his lively, gray-blue
eyes have a hard, penetrating, searching look that seems to be
probing deeply into you. He talks in short concise sentences,
with no unnecessary words. For many years he was the terror of
Arab spies and agents. Until 1963, Little Isser — Isser Harel
(Halperin) is his name —was head of the Israeli secret services.

That, however, is not his chief claim. He is the man who can
justly say, “I am the man who captured Eichmann.”
Isser Harel was a fighter from a very early age, like many
future pioneers in Palestine. Born at Vitebsk (also Chagall’s
birthplace), soon after World War I he traveled about Russia and
Poland, finally arriving at Dvinsk, in Latvia. Two gangs of youth
were warring with each other among the ruins of the badly
battered town; one gang was composed of Jews, the other of
Gentiles. Despite his short height, Isser became head of the Jew-
ish gang, and they returned blow for blow. The others learned to
treat them with respect.
Isser Harel arrived in Palestine in 1933. He landed at Jaffa
clutching a loaf under his arm, not because bread was scarce in
Palestine at that time, but because there was a treasure hidden
inside it — a revolver. He worked
joined the Shfaim kibbutz and
for several years in the orange groves of Saron. However, he had
not gone to Palestine just to work. He became a member of
Haganah climbed quickly
,
to the upper ranks, and served well
161
162 THE AVENGERS

with SHAI, the counter-espionage service of the clandestine or-

ganization. When the State of Israel was proclaimed in 1948 he
was made head of the Security Service. Four years later he was in
control of all the secret services of Israel. Little Isser tracked
down Arab saboteurs who slipped across the frontier. The
the
young state had to mobilize all its strength to meet the threats of
its Arab neighbors, who had sworn to sweep it into the sea. Then

came the Suez campaign, in 1956, and the victory of the Israeli
forces over the Egyptians.
“It was then,” Harel told me, “when the situation of Israel was
secure, that we decided to turn our attention to the Nazis. It was
a bit late in the day, I admit. But the first need had been to ensure
the very life of the Jewish people.”
In 1955, though, a national institute, the Yad Vashem, had been
founded. This was both memorial to the Jewish victims of
a

Nazism and a documentation center on Nazi crimes and the peo-

ple responsible. There was in fact a renewal of interest in
Nazism and its atrocities among people of many countries, espe-
cially among the young, who were asking how such crimes
against humanity had come to be committed and what manner of
men were those responsible. Could such things ever happen again,
either inGermany or elsewhere?
In West Germany, the Allied military governors had been re-
sponsible for apprehending war criminals until 1955, but in fact
littlewas done after 1950. In that and the following year, a num-
ber of war criminals who had received prison sentences were
released under a general amnesty. Many Germans, middle-aged
and older, would have liked a veil of silence drawn over the past,
over the atrocities of their Nazi leaders. But the young, those
who had been children during the war, were beginning to ask the
reasons for the opprobrium in which they felt their country to
be held.
In 1956, Dr. Fritz Bauer was appointed public prosecutor for
the land of Hesse. A Social Democrat and of Jewish origin, he
was a relentless enemy of Nazism. “The turning point came in
1955,” he has said. “It was then that books on Nazi war criminals
began to pour from the publishers. The fact that the younger
generation wanted to know the truth can be considered as a
The Man Who Captured Eichmann 163

minor revolution. This attitude of the young people enabled us to

start several new trials.”

1 he hunt for Nazi criminals received new life under the ener-
getic direction of Dr. Bauer. But in other German provinces the
public prosecutors did not show similar zeal; indeed, some closed
their eyes to scandalous cases. Nevertheless, in October 1958, the
Ministers of Justice for the eleven states of West Germany de-
cided to form a Center for the Investigation of Nazi War Crimes.
“The Yad Vashem was conduct
also in a position, after 1958, to
searches and to supply information of major importance on
nearly all the Nazi criminals still at liberty,” I was told by one of
the Institute’s directors, Emmanuel Brand.
In the USSR and satellite countries there was a movement to
track down and punish the guilty men too. Major trials were held
in several countriesduring 1958 and 1959, but they made little
impact on the general public. The second wave of vengeance did
not really start until Eichmann was captured.

Many factors played a role in Eichmann’s capture meth- —the

ods employed by the Israeli secret services, a combination of
—
fortunate circumstances, sheer luck all had their part. But it is
certain that the hunt would never have gotten under way if some
friends in West Germany had not supplied the Israeli Secret
Service with vital information.
One night in the summer of 1959, three men were clambering
up the rocky slopes toward a mountain pass close to the German
frontier with Austria. Suddenly there came a shout, “Give your-
selves up, you’re caught!” The three replied by opening fire. In
the short gun battle that followed, one of the three was shot
dead. The other two threw down their arms and were taken
prisoner. The West German Secret Service had captured two
agents of a Nazi underground escape organization.
The two prisoners were interrogated at length in an isolated
house not far from Frankfurt. They told all they knew about
their own and other underground organizations, the secret funds,
the escape routes, and the safe addresses used by fugitives.
The full report of these interrogations, containing an abun-
dance of new and important information, became known in its
164 THE AVENGERS

essentials to the Israeli Secret Service at the end of the summer of

*
959 -

A few days later, Little Isser saw Prime Minister Ben-Gurion

in Tel Aviv. “A friend in West Germany has given us proof that
Eichmann is in Argentina,” he said. “Can I give orders for my
men to get on his track?”
“Yes. Bring back Eichmann dead or
Ben-Gurion repliedalive,”
without hesitation. He thought for a moment and then added:
“But I’d rather that you brought him back alive. It would have
great importance for our young people.”
So the long hunt began.

The Israelis knew from a trustworthy source that Eichmann

was But where, exactly?
in Argentina.
More than nine years had passed since the day Eichmann
landed in Buenos Aires, wearing a moustache, his features hidden
by dark glasses and a black hat pulled down low. He had gone to
stay with trusted friends at the Jurmann boardinghouse in
Vicente Lopez, a suburb of Buenos Aires. After four months
there, he had moved to the house of another German, Fernando
Rider. Then Karl Fuldner, the head of CAPRI, the firm
founded to provide work for German fugitives, offered Eich-
mann a modest job in Tucuman, a small town some six hundred
miles from the bustling and dangerous capital.
Adolf Eichmann obtained his Argentine identification card at
Tucuman on April 4, 1952. It was in the name of Ricardo
Klement, single, mechanic by trade, born at Bolzano of a German
mother.
A year before, Eichmann had written to Vera Liebl in Austria,
signing with a false name. In his letter, he had informed her that
“her children’s uncle, whom
everyone believed to be dead, was
alive and well.” Vera had recognized the handwriting. Some time
later, she had told her children that “Uncle Ricardo,” their dead

father’s cousin, was inviting them all to join him in Argentina.

Vera was very discreet. She managed to obtain a perfectly
legitimate passport at Zurich, without arousing the suspicion of
any of the agents keeping an eye on her. The Nazi underground
organizations, for their part, set about covering up her tracks;
The Man Who Captured Eichmann '<>5

and succeeded so well that when, years later, some secret agents
—
got hold of the Liebl file they found it empty all the documents
had been removed.
Vera and her three sons, Horst, Dieter, and Klaus, vanished
from their home in June 1952. At the beginning of July they
were in Genoa, and on July 28 they landed in Buenos Aires. On
August 5 they arrived by train in Tucuman.
1

Moshe Pearlman has written: “Vera Eichmann still had a pic-

ture in her mind of the dapper SS officer in his fine uniform and
shiny black boots. But the man waiting for her on the station
platform was plainly dressed, much older, with a pallid, lined face
and a tired look. It was her Adolf, though.”*
Eichmann had certainly changed a lot. He was thinner, too,
and had lost his arrogant, aggressive manner. There was a
timorous, resigned look on his face. But his thin-lipped, unpleas-
ant mouth still seemed cruel.
Many Nazi fugitives in Argentina were living simply, even
with the help given them. Vera had to get used to a life that was
sometimes barely above the poverty line. The three boys re-
mained unaware that “Uncle Ricardo” was their father. In 1953
CAPRI went bankrupt and Eichmann had to look for other
work. He returned to Buenos Aires and rented a small house in
Calle Chacabuco, in Vicente Lopez, the suburb where he had
lived before, and started a laundry business with two other Nazis
as partners. It soon and Eichmann left Buenos Aires again.
failed,

For a few months he worked on a farm raising rabbits, then got a

job at a fruit-canning factory.
The “Klement” family thus managed, but the future looked
grim. Moreover, there was the constant fear of recognition.
Eichmann had to be suspicious of every new face, always had to
be on guard. His financial situation grew worse, and he decided
to contact the Nazi underground organization in Argentina. He
had always avoided it, because of the possibility that a police
informer might have worked his way into Nazi circles. Eichmann
was well aware that his life was at stake if he were caught.
However, all went well. Having established that he was really
SS Obersturmbann-Fuehrer Adolf Eichmann, retired, “Ricardo
* La Longue Chasse.
1 66 THE AVENGERS

Klement” had soon found employment as aforeman at the Mer-

cedes-Benz car factory at Suarez, not far from Buenos Aires.
Eichmann earned good money during the next few years; he
lived well, and in peace. He legally married Vera again, thus
becoming her second husband and the stepfather of his own chil-
dren. A fourth child was born to the couple, a boy whom they
named Francisco, after the priest who had helped Eichmann sail
from Genoa. Eichmann’s confidence gradually returned. While
he rarely left the area of Buenos Aires, and only then to make a
short journey into the country, he had several meetings with
notorious Nazis, in particular with Von Leers. Then he grew
bold enough to give a whole series of interviews to a Dutch Nazi
named Sassen, who with much difficulty reduced all this autobio-
graphical material into a thick book of 659 pages. The passing
years had perhaps led Eichmann to think that he was sure of
escaping punishment! But time was running out on him. Someone
had recently sat opposite him and recognized him as Adolf Eich-
mann. This person was an Israeli.

I am not at liberty to give his name, but will call him B.A. He
is a tall, burly man with snow-white hair, a member of a left-
wing kibbutz.
“From 1954 to 1957 I was on a mission in Argentina,” he told
me. “I was organizing Jewish youth movement which had So-
a
cialist and Zionist leanings. In February 1956 I took my family to
the vacation camp that the youth club had set up near Lake
Nahuel Huapi, San Carlos de Bariloche. It was there that the
at
incident occurred, on February 24. But you’d better read this
. . .

report, which I sent soon afterwards to the relevant Israeli au-

thorities.”
“On February 24, 1956,” B.A. had written in his report, “I
went into a cafe on the road to Bariloche with my wife and son.
It was raining and a strong wind was blowing. The cafe was like

those in the Austrian Tirol, and had a large bay window looking
out over the lake. The walls had wood paneling halfway up, and
the whole place was spotlessly clean. In the middle was a table
with homemade cakes on it. On one of the walls, near a fine,
stuffed stag’s head, was pinned a notice that gave the telephone
The Man Who Captured Eichmann 167

number of a ‘Luftwaffe pilot making pleasure flights over the

lake.’

“Weordered tea and apple strudel. Just then, a party of seven

or eight Germans came in and sat down at the next table. They
were in high and obviously at home in the cafe. My wife
spirits
and I felt sure that they were ex-Nazis living in the large German
colony where they would be more at ease than in a
at Bariloche,
city. As they got up to go, one of the Germans pulled an enve-
lope covered with handsome stamps from his pocket and showed
it to his friends. He was standing quite close to me and I glanced

at the stamps, being something of a collector; they looked Aus-

trian to me.
“A few weeks Buenos Aires, I was glancing
later, back in
through the Israeli paper Davar, which was sent to me regularly,
and I saw an article on Eichmann written by Tuviah Friedman
and a large photo of the Nazi criminal. It was the man with the
stamps in the cafe at Bariloche, I felt certain. The photo was
probably old and showed Eichmann as a much younger man than
the person I had seen in the cafe. But the features were the same.
I showed it to my wife, and she was just as certain. The man we

had seen in the cafe was Eichmann, all right.”

B.A. went straight to the Israeli Embassy and told his story.
Then he wrote to several friends in Israel whom he knew had
belonged to groups of avengers just after the war.
The results were most disappointing. The friends in Israel re-
plied that Eichmann was very probably dead. And the Secret
Service did not appear to take B.A.’s report seriously —in fact,
some years later he learned had merely been filed away.
that it

“The people I’d written to,” B.A. told me, “informed me that
they had nevertheless made an attempt to follow up my informa-
tion, and had asked one of our friends living in the Bariloche area
to make further investigations. Nothing
came of them. But a little
later, as a result of these investigations, some avengers went to an

address in a suburb of Buenos Aires where the man I had seen

might possibly be living. There was a German living at the ad-
dress, but from all accounts he was not Eichmann. The search
—
was given up. It had cost a few thousand pesos in all less than a
hundred dollars.”
i68 THE AVENGERS

Had B.A. been mistaken? It would appear not, that the address
in the suburbs was the right one but that the Israelis had been
taken in: Once again, Eichmann had had a narrow escape.
Not long after these events, B.A. read in an evening paper a
sensational report that Tuviah Friedman knew where Eichmann
was in hiding — not in Argentina, but Kuwait! B.A. was indig-
nant.
When he was back in Tel Aviv, in early October 1959, he
visited friends who knew Hard.
Isser
“What’s all this about Eichmann being
Kuwait?” he said to
in
them. “I told you nearly three years ago that he was in Argen-
tina. Is there some political reason why we shouldn’t go and

capture Eichmann in Argentina?”

“I’ll go and have a word with Isser right away,” said one of the

others.
A couple of hours later, B.A. and his friend met in the Tel
Aviv cafe famous for the tree in the middle that grows up
through the roof.
“Isser remembers you very well,” B.A.’s friend told him. “No,
there’s no political obstacle to an attempt to kidnap Eichmann.
That Kuwait business was a stupid blunder, for it’s likely to make
Eichmann more cautious. Do you know some safe and reliable
men in Argentina who could help us? Isser instructed me to tell

you that there’ll be no trouble about money, and that he’s pre-
pared to send a ship to Argentina to bring Eichmann back to
Israel if he’s captured alive.”
B.A. gave the names of several dependable men in Argentina to
approach for “Operation Eichmann.” He also made another and
more detailed report about his encounter at Bariloche, for the
Israeli Secret Service, and he returned home to his kibbutz con-

tent at having set things in motion at last. Unknown to him,

however, Isser had sent one of his best agents to Buenos Aires,
immediately after receiving Ben-Gurion’s consent, and the Secret
Service was already looking for Eichmann.

Eichmann’s whereabouts were still unknown, but items of in-

formation began to reach the Israeli agents from various sources
as soon as it became known in Jewish circles that the hunt was
The Man Who Captured Eichmann 169

on. A South American Jew who had dealings with Germans was
the first to send in a report giving the name of Ricardo Klement,
his home address and place of work. Three Israeli agents were
detailed to follow this lead in the autumn of 1959.
Their instructions were not to kidnap Klement, but to discover
beyond all doubt whether this person was in fact Adolf Eich-
mann. The task occupied them for many months.
The three agents moved into a house in Calle Chacabuco right
opposite the Elements’ home. A
camera with a telescopic lens
was set up and a permanent watch was kept, so that Ricardo
Klement was photographed every time he left home and returned
or appeared at a window. When he went to catch a bus in the
morning he met several people carrying small attache cases. They
appeared to be hurrying to work and he paid no attention to
them, certainly not suspecting that the cases contained cameras
that photographed him from all angles. When he got off the bus
at Suarez, near the factory where he worked, other passersby
with small attache cases inconspicuously followed him; and simi-
larly when he left the factory for lunch.
All these photographs and films were developed and sent to
Israel, where they were examined by a special team composed of
Secret Service agents and police experts.
Despite all this and methodical documentation,
observation
Isser Harel and his colleagues were not entirely convinced that
Ricardo Klement and Adolf Eichmann were one and the same
person. They were handicapped in that they had but one photo-
graph of the known Eichmann, taken many years previously. It
hardly seemed possible that the meek factory worker, the sort of
man no one looks at twice, could have been responsible for large-
scale massacres and atrocities.
In February i960, the Elements moved from Calle Chacabuco
to a ramshackle house in the suburb of San Fernando. One of the
Israeli agents took a room in a house on the same street, and the
watch on Ricardo Element’s movements was continued.
Fie did something unusual on March 2 he bought some flow-1 ;

ers on his way home in the evening. The leader of the Israeli
secret agents wondered why. Why should Klement take a
bouquet of flowers home on that particular day? He soon found
 — —
170 THE AVENGERS

the answer. He knew Eichmann hie by heart. Vera Liebl and

the
Adolf Eichmann had been married on March 21, 1935, and March
21, i960, was their silver wedding anniversary. If the man calling
himself Ricardo Klement was really Vera’s second husband, why
should he take her flowers on the twenty-fifth anniversary of her
first wedding?
Eichmann’s romantic gesture was imprudent. But, amazing as it
may seem, he was basically a sentimental person.
Later that evening, a cable reached Little Isser in Tel Aviv. It
contained only three Hebrew words Ha'ish hou hcfish, the man
is the man.

The next phase of Operation Eichmann could proceed.

Early in April i960 the commando with orders to deal with

Eichmann was ready in Buenos Aires. It consisted of six men
four Israelis who
had traveled to Argentina separately and by
different routes, and two Argentinians. Each of the Israelis had
false identification papers and a cover story that would stand up
to the closest scrutiny. The two Argentinians had been recruited
locally,and had been warned that they would have to leave Ar-
gentina for good if Operation Eichmann was successful, and they
had agreed.
The broad outline of the plan was to kidnap Eichmann and
take him to Israel to stand trial. The Israeli leaders had long lost
all hope of obtaining the extradition of a Nazi criminal from

Argentina. The commando had orders to execute Eichmann if it

proved impossible to take him to Israel.
Contrary to what one might suppose, the most difficult part of
the plan was not to kidnap Eichmann but to get him out of the
country and to Israel. Isser had thought of sending a ship, but
decided on getting Eichmann away by air. It happened that Ar-
gentina was to celebrate the one hundred fiftieth anniversary of
her independence in May i960, and an Israeli delegation headed
by Foreign Minister Abba Eban was to attend. The Israeli Gov-
ernment and the El A 1 Airways announced that they would make
it an occasion to inaugurate air service between Israel and Ar-

gentina. A Britannia “Whispering Giant” would fly the Israeli

The Man Who Captured Eichmann 1 1

delegation to Argentina — and the return flight, it was hoped,

would have Eichmann on board.
Arrangements were made for holding Eichmann prisoner for a
maximum of three days at either of two places. One was a villa in
a suburb of Buenos Aires rented for the occasion. The other was
the house of a wealthy and respectable Argentine citizen, who
was easily —
made to believe he even took it as a compliment
that Abba Eban wished to have a secret meeting with Arab diplo-
mats to discuss a peace settlement between their countries and
Israel.

The flight of the El A 1 Britannia was fixed for May 1 1 . It

would have the number 6 oi, and committee chose the

a special
crew of the aircraft (4X/AGE). The captain was Zvi Tohar, El
Al’s senior pilot, and the two copilots were Ariee Shkolnik and
Shmouel Vedels, both veterans of the War of Independence.
On May 4, the traffic manager of El Al, Yehuda Shimoni,
arrived in Buenos Aires to make arrangements for Flight 601. He
left again on May 10, when Joseph Klein, head of El Al’s New

York office, was due to arrive to take over the technical side. The
day before the kidnapping there would be another air arrival
Isser Harel himself, but under another name and with a passport
from a European country.
Isser told a journalist in 1966 that he went to Argentina in
order to be able to deal at once with any unexpected problems
and difficulties that might crop up. He added that he knew from
experience that his presence would stimulate his men, since it
reflected the great importance attached to Eichmann’s capture.
In fact Operation Eichmann differed from any other in which
Isser had ever been engaged. He regarded it as a sacred mission
which had to succeed at all costs. To his mind, the Israeli Secret
Service, in whatever part of the world it was active, represented
not only the population of the State of Israel but also the whole
of world Jewry, the dead as well as the living.
The commando had a final meeting at two in the afternoon of
May 1. The plan was for Eichmann to be kidnapped at 6: 30 that
1

evening, on his way home from work. But the Argentine gov-
ernment, having been informed that the Israeli delegation would
 —

172 THE AVENGERS

arrive by special plane on the nth, had requested that the arrival
be changed to the 19th, the date the other foreign delegations and
personalities were expected. What was to be done about Eich-
mann? The intention was not to hold him in Argentina for more
than three days after kidnapping him. The postponement of the
delegation’s arrival meant that Eichmann would have to be kept
prisoner for more than a week.
The commando talked it over, and in the end decided to keep
to the original plan. They had Eichmann
a safe hideout, and
would be closely guarded. To postpone the kidnapping would
probably lead to more difficulties than advantages.
At the end of the afternoon, barely half an hour before the
commando was due to start operations, four of its members went
to a big hotel in Buenos Aires to see Isser Harel. He gave them
final instructions and also a card bearing a photograph of Eich-
mann’s fingerprints, the surest way of identifying him.
“Any questions?” Isser asked them.
“Yes,” said the agent who was
Eichmann after the
to guard
kidnapping, and remain with him constantly who would hand- —
cuff himself to the prisoner to be doubly certain of preventing
escape. “What am I to do if the Argentine police break into the
villa?”
“Two things,” Isser calmly replied. “Throw away the key of
you from the prisoner
the handcuffs, so that the police can’t part
at once, and give them my name —
the name I’m going by here
and the address of my hotel. If they manage to set hands on you
and Eichmann, then I’m ready to have myself arrested!”
Their chief’s determination gave the agents greater courage
and confidence. They did not know, however, that Isser Harel
had been recognized by members of the Argentine Secret Service
when he stepped from his plane, and that he had been kept under
observation since then. But it was no more than routine, for his
presence in Buenos Aires was thought to be connected with the
visit of the Israeli Foreign Minister and the delegation. The real

reason, the plan to kidnap Eichmann, was never suspected for a

moment. But one wonders what would have happened if those
keeping a watch on Isser’s movements had shadowed the four
men who came out of his room soon after six o’clock that eve-
The Ma?i Who Captured Eichmann *73

ning and who drove off in a hired car toward the suburb of San
Fernando.

As usual, Ricardo Klement got off the bus at the stop nearest
his home a minute or so before the half-hour, and began to walk
through the dismal and almost empty streets of the run-down
district. It was autumn and darkness was already beginning to

fall. A few cars sped past and disappeared into the twilight.

There was a car parked along the sidewalk at a crossroads near

his home. And a little way beyond was another stationary car
with the hood raised and three men bending over the engine. A
fourth man was walking slowly up and down.
As Ricardo Klement drew level with the car that seemed to
have broken down he put his hand in his pocket to get out his
flashlight, to light the way up the path to his front door. But
before he could get it one of the men dived at him, seizing
out,
his hand and knocking him to the ground. He struggled furi-
ously, and the two rolled into a trench which had been dug for
some roadworks. He tried to shout, but his false teeth had been
knocked loose and were half-choking him. Two of the other men
jumped into the trench and helped overpower the German. A
few seconds later they had him in the back of the car, pinned
firmly to the floor. They were astonished to find a flashlight in
his pocket —
they had thought as he walked past the car that he
had been about to draw a revolver.
Only twenty-seven seconds had elapsed between that moment
and the car’s takeoff with Eichmann held in the back. As the
driver started up the car he said over his shoulder, in German,
“One move, and you’re a dead man!” Eichmann took him at his
word and made no attempt to struggle during the drive.
The driver took little-used lanes to get round Buenos Aires.
The car was closely followed by a second containing the other
members of the commando, whose task was to prevent any pur-
suers from keeping on the track of the first car. But that evening
luck was with the Jews. No
one had witnessed the incident, apart
from the man walking up and down by the car; but he belonged
to the commando too, and as soon as the two cars sped away he
had gone to the rented room in the house near the Elements’
*74 THE AVENGERS

home tokeep watch on the family’s movements when they

learned that the father had disappeared.
The kidnappers’ car reached the hideaway villa without inci-
dent. Once inside with their prisoner, they examined his mouth
to see if a phial of poison was hidden in it, but found none. Then,
still not saying a word, they looked at his left armpit. As ex-
pected, there were small scars where the SS tattoo marks had
been removed. Only then did the leader of the commando put a
question to the prisoner. “Who are you?” he said in German.
The man calling himself Ricardo Klement must have realized
u
that it would be pointless to keep up the pretense. Ich bin Adolf
Eichmann he replied.
And he added wearily, as though voicing all the fears and
obsessions that had haunted him for fifteen years, “I know, I’m in
the hands of Jews.”
In Israel, on the day following the kidnapping, a man driving a
car covered with the dust of the desert arrived at the kibbutz of
Sde Boker, in theNegev, where Ben-Gurion had had his home
since 1954. The Prime Minister, seated at his cluttered desk, re-
ceived the visitor.
“I’ve come you that we’ve received
to tell a cable from Isser,”
said the visitor. “We’ve got Eichmann.”

In the sparsely furnished, windowless room, the electric light

was on day and night. Eichmann was not left alone for a moment.
But there seemed no need to handcuff him, for he gave no trou-
ble; he was submissive and resigned. Strangely, he gave the im-
pression of being relieved —
although he was caught, at least the
years of strain and anxiety were at an end.
Eichmann tried several times to get his captors into a conversa-
tion, but they did not answer him. After however, one of
a time,
them told him that he was being taken to Israel for a trial, and
asked if he would agree to that in writing.
Eichmann thought it over. It was clear that his captors would
never release him alive. If he agreed to their plan he would at
least gain a respite, perhaps even a faint chance of escaping a
death sentence. It was quite obvious that he would be killed at
once if his captors thought they had been discovered by the
 *
The Man Who Captured Eichmann *75

police, and a prison in Israel was probably safer than his present
situation.
The Israelis exerted no force to get him to write the agree-
ment. Eichmann wrote it knowing no choice.
that he had
“I the undersigned, Adolf Eichmann,” he wrote, “hereby de-
clare of my own free will that, as my true identity has been
discovered, I realize there is no possibility of trying to escape the
course of justice. I agree to be taken to Israel and there stand trial
before a qualified tribunal.

“It is understood that I shall be given the assistance of an

advocate and that I shall be allowed to lay before the court,
without travesty of the facts, an account of the last years of my
service inGermany, so that a truthful description of events may
be passed on to future generations. I am making this declaration
of my own accord. Nothing has been promised me, and I have
not been threatened. My desire is to find inner peace at last.

“As am unable to remember

I all the details and might get
confused when stating the facts, I ask that the relevant docu-
ments and testimonies be placed at my disposal to help me in my
efforts to establish the truth.”
(signed) “Adolf Eichmann
“Buenos Aires, May i960.”

The Israelis had their man and they had his written agreement
to stand trial in Israel. But they still had to wait for the plane that
was him out of Argentina.
to get
The Element family had reported the disappearance of Ri-
—
cardo but not until three days had elapsed. Vera was probably
afraid that an official inquiry might lead to the discovery of the
missing man’s real identity. When three days had passed without
any sign of him, the sons contacted the Nazi underground or-
ganization in Buenos Aires, and it at once started inquiries in
conjunction with the local branch of the Argentine Fascist organ-
ization Tacuara. Vera had been making the rounds of the hospitals
and morgues, and finally reported her husband’s disappearance to
the police. They, too, began inquiries, but these were purely
routine, for the disappearance of a man named Ricardo Klement
seemed of little importance.
176 THE AVENGERS

The Israeli agents soon learned through their informers that

inquiries were being made. There was a false alarm on May
14 or 15. The commando thought it saw some suspicious activity
near the villa, and moved out that night after giving Eichmann a
sleeping drug. His captors took him to the second hideaway, the
wealthy Argentinian’s villa, and there they stayed until their
flight from the country.
Rarely can a plane have been as anxiously awaited as the El A 1

Britannia bringing the Israeli delegation. It landed at Buenos

Aires airport at 5:52 p.m. on May 20, and representatives of
the Argentine government welcomed the delegation. Apparently
no one commented on the unusually large crew there were nine- —
teen names on the aircraft’s papers. Nor did anyone remark on
the inclusion of Colonel Meir Zorea among the delegation. Like
General Laskov, then Commander in Charge of the Israeli Army
(who had come to the airport to congratulate the commando and
wish it good luck in the completion of the mission), Colonel
Zorea had been one of the leaders of the early avengers.
All the passengers having disembarked, the Britannia was run
into a hangar. In the middle of the night, Joseph Klein, the head
of El Al’s New York office who had been summoned to Buenos
Aires, went to inform the airport control that he had just re-
ceived “urgent instructions to send the Israeli plane back to Tel
Aviv via Dakar and Rome.” Mechanics got busy checking the
aircraft, and the captain arrived to supervise preparations and
refuelling. The crew came back to the airport from Buenos Aires
one after the other.
Meanwhile, at the villa where Eichmann was being held, his
captors were getting ready for the move to the airport. Eich-
mann, who had been given a soporific and was in a semi-stupor,
was dressed in the uniform of a steward of El A 1 Airways and
then liberally sprinkled with whiskey. A short time later, the staff
on duty at the airport saw a car arrive with some of the El A 1 air
crew, all in uniform, including a steward who, supported by his
comrades and smelling of drink, seemed to have spent his few
hours in Buenos Aires visiting the bars.
The Britannia with Eichmann on board took off into the
night. It made only one landing to refuel, at Dakar, and touched
The Man Who Captured Eichmann
«
I
77

down at Lydda airport, near Tel Aviv, just before dawn on May
22, a Sunday. A small group of men hurried from the plane to a
car waiting near an exit forbidden to the public, and drove off
without attracting attention.
The following afternoon at four o’clock, Prime Minister Ben-
Gurion rose to address the Knesset, the Israeli National Assem-
bly.Speaking clearly and with emotion, he made a brief state-
ment:
“I must inform the Knesset that the security services of Israel
have just laid their hands on one of the greatest of the Nazi
criminals, Adolf Eichmann, who was responsible with other Nazi
leaders for what they called the ‘Final Solution,’ that is to say the
extermination of six million European Jews. Eichmann is at
present under arrest here in Israel. He will soon be put on trial, in
Israel, in accordance with the law on the crimes of the Nazis and

their collaborators.”
Great applause broke out from all parts of the Assembly, in
tribute to the amazing exploits of the Secret Service. Operation
Eichmann had been a complete success, despite all the difficulties.
Now it was time for the law to deal with the man who had said
twenty years earlier: “I shall leap laughing into the grave, happy
at having exterminated sixty million Jews.”
19
s.

THREE TRUE HUNTERS- SIMON

WISENTHAL, TUVIAH FRIEDMAN,
AND HERMANN LANGBEIN

Simon Wisenthal and Tuviah Friedman are bloodhounds with ,

plenty of craft and courage. Each has been responsible for the
capture of many Nazi fugitives, each is entitled to credit for
several important cases. However, in the Eichmann case, a point
or two should be clarified.
After the kidnapping was made public, when newspapers all

over the world realized their readers were avid for sensational
details about Eichmann’s capture, Wisenthal published a book in
Germany entitled Ich jagte Eichmann Hunted Eichmann). He
(I
allowed himself to be called “Eichmann’s hunter.” As for Fried-
man, he adopted this title and then published a book in the
United States which told how he had been the capturer.
Wisenthal was soon being called “Simon the Avenger” by the
press, who presented him as mysterious, omnipotent, and alto-
gether formidable. It was hardly surprising to find, for instance,
Rene MacColl writing in the Daily Express : “If I were a Nazi
criminal in flight, my most earnest wish would be never to hear
Simon Wisenthal’s laugh of vengeance.”
Tuviah Friedman, for his part, told all and sundry that Eich-
mann’s first words to his kidnappers were: “Which of you is
Friedman?”
While in the United States for the publication of his book,
Friedman refused to be photographed unless wearing a hat with a
wide, multicolored band and without first distorting his face with
a large grimace
—
“so as not to be identified by the Nazi aveng-
ers.”

178
T hree T rue Hunters
«
179

The truth, however, is that Eichmann’s capture was due solely

to the Israeli secret services — neither Simon Wisenthal nor
Tuviah Friedman had any direct part in it.

Thisnot to say that they had not made every effort to obtain
is

information which might lead to the capture of Eichmann. Simon

Wisenthal was one of the few survivors of Mauthausen extermi-
nation camp. When he was freed he weighed no more than one
—
hundred pounds and he is six feet tall. He soon became an agent
—
for the American OSS, and at that time shortly after the end of
—
the war he was already beginning to track down Nazi war crim-
inals. At Linz, Austria, he made contact with Arthur Pier and

with the group of avengers based in Vienna which included

“Manos” Diamant, Alex Gatmon, and Tuviah Friedman.
By his own account, Wisenthal played an important part even
then in attempts to find Eichmann. Arthur Pier (or Ben Natan,
now Ambassador in Bonn), however, denied this. Wisen-
Israeli

thal maintains that it was he who succeeded in preventing Vera

Eichmann from legalizing her husband’s “death” on the strength
of false testimonies. If she had not been prevented, says Wisen-
thal, Eichmann would never have been found because the Allied

authorities would have abandoned their search. This seems exag-

gerated, for despite all the death certificates for Bormann and
Mueller, the hunt for them went on. And in any case the Israeli
secret services would have eventually discovered that Eichmann
was still alive.

When the Documentation Center in Vienna considerably re-

duced its activities, following the departure to Israel of most of
its members, Wisenthal continued gathering documents and in-

formation with commendable energy. But the information he

obtained about Eichmann was slender, and on several occasions
he found himself following a false lead. He has said that he just
missed capturing Eichmann on December 31, 1949, while keeping
watch on his wife’s home. But according to a trustworthy source,
Eichmann never got in touch with his wife again until after
reaching Argentina.
Wisenthal had a lucky break while on a holiday in the Austrian
Tirol in 1953. He became friendly with an elderly baron who
i8o THE AVENGERS

was and one day the baron showed him a

a philatelist like himself,
letter from Argentina. It had been written by a former comrade
of the baron, an ex-German army officer, who had settled in
Argentina after the war. Among other things, it said: “Guess
who I saw in Buenos Aires — that dirty swine,Eichmann.” The
writer added that Eichmann was living in a suburb of Buenos
Aires and working for the Water Board.
As was learned later, in 1953 Eichmann was living in the coun-
try and working on a farm raising rabbits. But at that time, so
little was known about Eichmann that the information given by

the baron was of great value. It was the first reliable indication of
the country where Eichmann was hiding.
Wisenthal at once made every effort to alert and convince the
Gold-
international Jewish organizations, and in particular Dr.
mann, President of the Jewish World Congress. But no one
would believe him. Whether Wisenthal would have captured
Eichmann long before May i960, if he had been believed, is an-
other matter.

In 1953 Tuviah Friedman had been living in Israel for some

years and had set up a documentation center on Nazi crimes. His
task was difficult because he was a long way from the under-
ground Nazi organizations in Europe and from the Communists
among the Vienna police, who used to be his best informers. So
the main value of his work was historical.
Friedman was not well-off in Israel. He was dependent for his
researches on a small subsidy and on money provided by his wife,
a surgeon. Other hunters of Nazi criminals had long obtained
well-paid posts for themselves, but Friedman persisted in his task
and continued going through great piles of documents, collecting
testimonies and eye-witness accounts, and badgering the Israeli
government to give higher priority to the hunt for Nazi crimi-
nals, particularly for Eichmann.

As already mentioned, in October 1959 Friedman published a

sensational report in the Israeli press —
Eichmann was in Kuwait.
Friedman had heard the story in this way: A German journalist
on a short visit to Damascus had learned from an informer that
Eichmann had lived there for some years but had recently gone
 *
Three True Hunters 1 8

to work for an oil company in Kuwait. The journalist returned at

once to Germany and told Erwin Schule, the force behind the
Central Office for Investigations about Nazi Criminals, who had
passed it on to his good friend Tuviah Friedman.
Friedman thought his years of effort were at last bearing fruit.
Unfortunately, the information was entirely false; Eichmann had
never been in Damascus or Kuwait. A
Friedman re-
little later,

ceived a letter from Argentina which informed him that Eich-

mann was living there and offered to give the Nazi criminal’s
address for $10,000.
Was this lead a good one? Some of the details in the letter
raised doubts about its reliability. Flowever, Friedman continued
corresponding with informer until April i960 and this is
this —
why he claimed to be the person responsible for discovering
Eichmann’s whereabouts. Friedman had passed on the informa-
tion he received to the Jewish organizations in Buenos Aires, and
they sent someone to see Friedman’s mysterious correspondent,
but apparently without result.

Simon Wisenthal closed documentation center in 1954. He

his
began again in 1961, still in Vienna, and had several successes.
In July 1964 he learned that the ex-SS officer Kurt Wiese, who
had been arrested and charged with the massacre of one hundred
people at Bialystok, had disappeared while free on bail awaiting
trial. He meant to escape to Egypt by way of Belgrade. Wisen-
thal moved heaven and earth to set the authorities on Wiese’s
track and, despite only a grudging inclination in certain high
places, he succeeded in getting the police to take action. Wiese
was arrested by the Austrian police at the Semmering railway
station, just before his train left for the frontier.
Wisenthal was also responsible for the capture of Ehle, who
had ordered the massacre of fifteen hundred Jewish women near
Lake Grodno. And he also brought about the arrest of Silber-
bauer, the policeman who had been implicated in the discovery
of Anne Frank and her family and in sending them to a concen-
trationcamp. Another successful case was that of Dr. Karl Babor,
the monster of Gross Rosen, who killed himself when about to be
arrested.
182 THE AVENGERS

But Wisenthal’s greatest and most recent success was bringing

to justice Franz Stangl, camp commandant at Treblinka.
Toward the end of 1943, Stangl had been sent to Yugoslavia
because he knew too much about the ways the Final Solution was
being applied. The Nazi leaders hoped he would be killed while
fighting Tito’s partisans. After the war, he escaped from Europe
and went first to Syria and then to South America. Like many
other major war criminals, he had taken steps to fake his death.
When he reached Brazil, found employment at the Volkswagen
factory at Sao Paulo, and settled down, he had reasonable cause
to believe himself safe from the attentions of “hunters.” How-
ever, throughout all those years, Wisenthal had kept in his wallet
a photograph of this fair-haired, brutal-looking man, so that he
should never forget him. And as a result of much investigation
and persistence, Wisenthal finally discovered Stangl’s where-
abouts and caused his arrest.
All these activities were not without personal risk. Wisenthal
often received threatening letters and telephone calls, and he has
said that a neo-Nazi organization, WUNS, put a price on his head
and that he narrowly escaped attempts on his life. Nevertheless,
his determination remained intact.
Wisenthal became generally recognized after i960 as the best
of the “Nazi-hunters.” He was subsidized by Jewish and anti-
Fascist organizations, and had correspondents in all parts of the
world. His documentation center in Vienna contained files on
more than twenty thousand Nazi criminals, an invaluable source
of detailed information which he had accumulated over the years.
A “Wisenthal Fund” had been established in Holland. In addition
to his many informers in various parts of the world, Wisenthal
had a number of permanent assistants. All this did not fail to earn
him the antipathy of Nazi-hunters who worked more discreetly
and with considerably fewer means at their disposal, and who
thought that too much publicity was detrimental to their task.
And Wisenthal, as in the Rajakovitch case, was not averse to
taking more than his share of the credit.
Eric Rajakovitch had been Eichmann’s representative in Hol-
land for the Final Solution. He had escaped to Italy after the war,
Three True Hunters * 183

calling himself Enrico Rajaand managing an export and import

firm in Milan, Enneri and Company, which traded with Eastern
European countries. He had become a “Red Nazi,” so to speak.
An informer put two hunters on his track Simon Wisenthal and —
Hermann Langbein. The latter passed the information on to the
Public Prosecutor’s office in Vienna, which took the necessary
steps for Rajakovitch’s arrest should he enter Austria, perhaps in
the course of a business trip. Wisenthal, however, tried first to
have Rajakovitch arrested by the Italians, then to obtain his ex-
tradition. Neither attempt succeeded, and he sent the story, giv-
ing much prominence to his own efforts, to the Corriere della
Sera, which published it on April 8, 1963. Rajakovitch was even-
tually arrested, thanks to the persistence of several hunters
among whom Simon Wisenthal had a place, but only a place.
I have spent many hours in Wisenthal’s company. He has be-

come a famous man. He showed me his files and card index. He

seems a kind of Jewish Don Quixote, a man who has taken up
the cudgels for a cause that the rest of the world seems to have
lost sight of. He is a man who has suffered and still suffers each
time his investigations uncover some new horror.
“Have you ever Nazi yourself?” I asked him.
killed a
“Never,” he replied. “We Jews have to prove that justice is on
our side. That means we must hand the criminals over to the
police. Our task ends there. However,” he added, “there was one
occasion when I almost killed a man. It was in 1947. I found him
in a POW camp. He had this photograph on him.”
I have never seen a photograph as horrible as the one Wisenthal

handed to me. It showed a naked Jew, very likely dead, sus-

pended from a meat hook by his penis, with his arms and legs
dangling.
“I leaped at him with an angry growl. I wanted to kill him.
I’d lost all control of myself. Then two American soldiers pulled
me away . .
.”

“I sometimes feel that I’m working in awful solitude,” Wisen-

thal went on. “I’m wish there was not just one but
all alone, and I

a hundred Wisenthals, and that the Nazis were trembling wher-

ever they’re in hiding.”
184 THE AVENGERS

There is a man nqt nearly as well known as Wisenthal, who

can justly be called the most earnest and thorough of hunters of
Nazi criminals. He, too, lives in Vienna. His name is Hermann
Langbein, and he is not a Jew.
He lives in a modest house
one of Vienna’s outer suburbs.
in
After passing inspection by a husky on guard, a visitor must
climb some narrow stairs to reach the study on the second floor.
The desk seems about to collapse under the weight of heaps of
files. The bookshelves hold everything ever written about Nazism.

And there are two large white wooden boxes containing a com-
plete card index on the war criminals of Auschwitz.
There is a constant succession of visitors to the small living
room on the ground floor, men and women who all have a num-
ber tattooed on their forearms. They come to talk to Langbein
about their parents or their husband or wife or other relatives;
about all those who never returned.
Langbein was general secretary of the international committee
at Auschwitz, and is now secretary of the general committee of
ex-concentration camp prisoners.
He was born in Vienna in 1912. He became an actor at the
Volkstheater and joined the Communist Party. When Hitler an-
nexed Austria, he went to Spain and fought with the Second
International Brigade, taking part in the battle to hold the line of
the Ebro River. After Franco’s victory he escaped to France and
was sent to an internment camp, where he remained until April
1941, when the Germans sent him to Dachau. He was there from
May 1941 until August 1942, when he was transferred to Ausch-
witz. Soon after the camp was freed he became secretary of the
prisoners’ international committee, which was dominated by
Communists. In 1958, when the Russians crushed the Hungarian
uprising, Langbein left the Communist Party. He then found
himself without a job, without money, and with a wife and two
children to support.
It was at this time that he reached the decision to devote him-
self to tracking down Nazis who had committed crimes against
humanity.
His first case was that of Dr. Karl Clauberg, whom a German
journalist had called “the most horrid man in the world.” Indeed
T hree T rue Hunters « 185

it would be difficult to find a more horrid person than this gnome

with a toad-like face who, at the beginning of the war, had writ-
ten to the Nazi leaders to ask that fifty women, mental cases for
instance, be placed at his disposal “so that I can carry out expe-
riments.” A year later Himmler had sent him “very good news”
— am giving you Block 10 at
“I Auschwitz. There you will have
as many women as you want.”

Dr. Clauberg set to work. He operated on hundreds of young

women from Block 10, over the years —trying to find the quick-
est and cheapest method of sterilizing a woman. His victims
suffered brutally on his black glass operating table. These were
the kinds of “experiments” that Himmler loved to have described
to him.
After the war, Clauberg was tried by the Russians and given a
prison sentence of twenty-five years. But he wasreleased in 1955
under the Bulganin-Adenauer agreement on the repatriation of
German prisoners. Clauberg went to live in West Germany. If he
had chosen to live quietly, he probably would have been left in
peace, like many other war criminals. But he was a great brag-
gart, and soon after his return to Germany he appeared on
television as a martyr in the cause of science, boasted of his con-
tribution to the advances in medical knowledge, and even told
journalists, “I’m not ashamed of my scientific experiments at
Auschwitz.” He was mad enough to issue an ultimatum to the
West German government: “Supply me with money and equip-
ment to continue with my research, or I shall go off to a country
where some of my students have gathered.”
This exhibition drew protests from many quarters. The general
council of German Jews and various other organizations de-
manded the arrest of Clauberg for having maltreated and tor-
tured women prisoners.
“Unfortunately,” said Langbein, “that category of crime came
under the time limitations in West German law. It mattered little
to Clauberg that he was accused of maltreating and torturing
women. But it would be a different matter if proof could be
obtained that he had committed murders, for that was not cov-
ered by the time limitations. So I set about finding witnesses who
could give evidence that several women had died as a result of
i86 THE AVENGERS

experiments carried out by Clauberg. I did find such witnesses. I

was able to furnish proof that Clauberg was a murderer. He was

arrested, and he died in prison in the summer of 1957.”
Langbein soon established contact with the majority of ex-Re-
sistance and similar organizations and prominent people dedicated
to the hunt for Nazi criminals, notably Hubert Halin in Brussels,
Fritz Bauer in Frankfort, Simon Wisenthal in Vienna, the Yad
Vashem Institute in Israel, the Z entralstelle in Ludwigsburg, and
the Institute for Documentation on World War II in Amster-
dam.
“On the morning of April 30, 1959, I received a telephone call
from Katowice, Poland,” he told me. “The man at the other end
was a stranger to me. Speaking in bad German, he said, ‘Lang-
”
bein, did you know Kaduk?’
What a question — Kaduk had been the head Blok-Fuehrer at
Auschwitz, the sadistic brute who had beaten a number of pris-
oners to death! After the war, the Russians had sentenced him to
prison, but he had been released by the East German authorities.
Since then, all attempts to trace him had failed.
“My name is Stanislas Pavliczek,” said the man at the other end
of the line. “I’m going to send you the address where Kaduk is

now living.”
A few hours later, Langbein received a telegram: “Address
Berlin entrance 65 Turinerstrasse 19. Pavliczek, Katowice.”
This information proved to be correct. Kaduk was arrested,
tried, and given a life sentence.
“He was minor war criminal,” Langbein said to me. “One of
a
those who murdered with his own hands. But the others, those
who ordered the execution of hundreds of thousands of people,
were often acquitted for lack of evidence or were given token
sentences —when they didn’t succeed in escaping justice alto-
gether.”
In the early 1960’s, Langbein succeeded in tracing the where-
abouts of the notorious Dr. Mengele, one of the majorwar crim-
inals. He also discovered the hideout of Dr. Horst Schumann, a

colleague of Clauberg at Auschwitz. And he was busy trying to

trace Dr. Babor, Heinrich Mueller, and others.
“At the time of Eichmann’s capture I was in Germany with an
Three True Hunters *
187

English journalist,” he told me. “We decided to telephone to

Vera Liebl’s sister to ask her what she thought of her brother-in-
law. ‘What him is shameful!’ she
the papers are writing about
exclaimed over the telephone. ‘I know Eichmann very well. He
has never misappropriated funds, never stolen any money. He’s
always been honest!’
“This reaction is typical of the Nazi mentality,” Langbein
commented. “I noticed the same thing at the trial of the Ausch-
witz camp guards. They went into fits of rage when they were
accused of stealing, of keeping the belongings of Jews. What?
They’d never steal anything, it would be against their honor! But
when they were accused of murdering Jews and other prisoners,
including women
and children, they didn’t feel dishonored then.
They’d only been obeying orders.”
That the Auschwitz trial was able to be held at all was due in a
large measure to the documentation on conditions in the camp
that Langbein had accumulated and made available to the prose-
cution.
Hermann Langbein is still continuing his work, stubbornly and
perseveringly. He is interested in more than finding war criminals
— if one is acquitted or given a ridiculously short sentence, he
gathers fresh evidence, finds more witnesses, and badgers the pub-
lic prosecutor until a new trial is ordered.
Because he has chosen not to seek fame, Langbein has a very
small budget and has to make many sacrifices in order to con-
tinue. He writes books and newspaper articles. The ex-concentra-
tion camp prisoners committee pays his postage expenses, but that
is all.

“My books sell badly,” he said with a smile. “They’re full of

horrible tales. I write them chiefly for the German and Austrian
public, but theGermans and Austrians don’t care for them. They
say that my kind of books prevents them from sleeping at nights,
gives them nightmares. They prefer a lighter form of literature,
something much more cheerful.”

In i960 the attention of ex-Resistance organizations was drawn

to an Austriannews agency, the Neue Internazionale Reportage ,

whose foreign correspondents were working from cities where

1 88 THE AVENGERS

ex-Nazi or neo-Nazi organizations were known to exist — cities

and towns such as Malmo, Baghdad, Madrid, Cairo, and Cape

Town. Jean Marais was the agency’s managing director, and he
lived in Greinergasse, Vienna.
The International Union of Ex-Resistants and Deportees
(IURD) sent a man to Vienna to find out more about Marais,
and discovered his real name was Robert Verbelen — a man well
known to the Belgian Resistance. He had been a notorious col-
laborator, the leader of the FlemishSS and an Abwehr informer.
The Belgian authorities had been looking for him for years. Dur-
ing the German occupation, Verbelen and his aides had com-
mitted scores of murders, including that of General Emile Lar-
tigue, and had denounced hundreds of patriots. Verbelen had fled
to Germany when the Allies liberated Belgium, and since then all
trace of him had been lost. On September 14, 1947, a Belgian
military tribunal had passed a death sentence on him in his ab-
sence.
Verbelen had found a safe way of hiding. At the end of the
war he had become an agent for the American Secret Service in
Austria, under the name of Peter Meyer. He was living with a
young Austrian schoolteacher, Fraulein Bankhofer, and had two
children by her. The Americans had him spy on the activities of
the Austrian Communist Party, and apparently he carried out his
task to the complete satisfaction of his employers. However, the
Allied occupation of Austria ended in 1955, and Verbelen was
on his own. But, recommended by the Americans, he entered the
Austrian Secret Service, again changing his name, this time to
Albert Kluge.
By
1958 he felt safe enough to resume his real identity and to
apply for Austrian citizenship, which was given him. He did not
stop there. Still enraptured with National Socialism, he got in
touch with underground movements in Sweden, Holland, and
South Africa. He was soon in contact with Adolf von Thadden,
the future leader of the neo-Nazi party NPD, and with the
HI AG, whose two leaders, ex-SS Standarten-Fuehrer Karl Ulrich
and ex-SS Brigade-Fuehrer Karl Cerff, were old comrades of his.
He wrote many articles for neo-Nazi publications under the pen
name of Jean Marais —though sometimes under the name Isaak
T hre T rue
c Hunters 1
89

Meisels, a Belgian Jew who had been sent to the gas chambers at
Auschwitz!
As a result of their investigations, the leaders of the Belgian ex-
Resistance organizations headed by Hubert Halin, knew where
Verbelen was. But they also knew that he was attached to the
Austrian Secret Service. Any attempt by legal means to have him
apprehended carried the risk that he might be warned in time and
disappear again, aided by his many contacts. So some of the Bel-
gians considered the possibility of kidnapping Verbelen and
bringing him back to Belgium. But the difficulties were great, as
therewas all of Germany to cross, and a number of hideouts
would have to be arranged along the way. They would need
much money and many men. In the end, they abandoned the idea
and decided to approach the Austrian authorities, with great cau-
tion, and request Verbelen’s arrest. In the early stages, the Belgians
took only one man into their confidence, a man they trusted
—
completely Hermann Langbein. Only later, when the prelimi-
nary stages were completed, was Langbein allowed to approach
Simon Wisenthal about the next steps to take.
Thus it was that Langbein and Wisenthal arrived at the Public
Prosecutor’s office in Vienna on April 11, 1962, carrying several
bulky files.
“We’ve brought you testimonies and accusations concerning
Robert Verbelen, the Belgian war criminal,” they said, in effect, to
the Public Prosecutor. “He has been sentenced to death in his
absence. He is at present living in Vienna, and we request you
to take immediate steps to have him arrested.”
The came close to failing at this point. The testi-
enterprise
monies and other documents in the files were all in Flemish, and
the Public Prosecutor said that they would have to be translated
into German before he could take any action. Langbein and
Wisenthal pointed out that long before the translations were
completed, it was ten to one that Verbelen would learn what was
happening. “We’re not going to leave here until you’ve issued a
warrant for his arrest,” they declared.
They convinced the Public Prosecutor, himself an ex-
finally
deportee with little sympathy for pro-Nazis. And that evening
Verbelen was arrested. Probably never before in the annals of the
190 THE AVENGERS

law has a Public Prosecutor issued a warrant on the strength of

written evidence entirely unintelligible to him.
Two years of painstaking work had been rewarded. The per-
son chiefly responsible was the IURD special representative,
Hubert Halin.
“It wasn’t enough to have Verbelen arrested,” Halin said later.
“We had to ensure that he wouldn’t be let out on bail, which
would have enabled him to disappear again. Public opinion in
Belgium and the rest of the world had to be roused. Wehad to
let everyone know of our action without delay. We’d already

written a long article on all the crimes committed by Verbelen

and had given it to the Belgian paper Le Soir, whose editor had
agreed to print it at a time of our choosing.
“An hour after Verbelen’s arrest, I telephoned Le Soir. The
article was already set, and it appeared in the final edition that
evening, splashed on the front page. The public knew what we
—
had brought about that Verbelen had just been arrested and was
in prison in Austria. You can imagine the excitement this news
caused among former members of the Belgian Resistance and ex-
servicemen. The Austrian authorities couldn’t change their deci-
sion once the story was out. In spite of his connections, Verbelen
was kept in prison.”

Verbelen was put on trial in Austria, acquitted and released!

There were many protests and public demonstrations, and a new
trial was ordered.
20

THE DEGRELLE FIASCO

When Eichmann’ s capture beca?ne known to the world, a surge

of neo-Nazism spread across South America and soon reached
Europe. Fanatical young members of Nazi underground organi-
zations started a wave of reprisals. Homemade bombs were
thrown at Israeli embassies and consulates, at synagogues, Jewish
community centers, and the homes of well-known Jews. Swasti-
kas and slogans like “Death to the Jews” appeared on walls in
Buenos Aires and also at Santiago, Asuncion, Montevideo, and
Bogota. There were instances of Jews being attacked, beaten up.
Others received threatening letters or telephone calls.

Members of Tacuara the Fascist organization in Argentina,

planned to kidnap the Ambassador and blow up the Em-
Israeli

bassy. In West Germany, a Nazi organization put a price on the

head of Isser Harel, and another but more moderate plan was to
kidnap the President of the Jewish World Congress, Dr. Nahum
Goldmann. In fact, many Jews left Argentina at this time.
The violent outburst reached its climax the day after Eich-
mann’s execution. A gang of young sadists belonging to Tacuara
kidnapped Jewish student, Graciella Narcissa Sirota, and tor-
a
tured her. They burned her all over with their cigarettes and cut
on her breast.
a swastika
But most affected by the kidnapping and execution of Eich-
mann were the Nazi fugitives. And they took care to avoid these
anti-Jewish demonstrations. Indeed they reacted by fleeing in
fear.Almost overnight, hundreds left their jobs and vanished
from their homes. They had felt the winds of change, that South
America was no longer the “impregnable fortress” it had been for
so many years. Some of the Nazis who fled from Argentina
sought refuge with German colonies in Paraguay, where they
191
192 THE AVENGERS

came under the protection of Odessa. Others merely sought po-

lice protection, as the Lithuanian exile Herbert Cukurs did at Sao
Paulo.
Nazi war criminals in other parts of the world grew uneasy,
Leon Degrelle, who
too. In Spain, previously felt safe, began to
wonder whether Eichmann had told the Israeli Secret Service
anything about the Nazi underground organizations, and whether
this would set the avengers on his trail. To reassure himself,
Degrelle went to Cairo and Damacus and saw several former high
priests ofNazism, Von Leers among them. They told Degrelle
that Eichmann had known very little about the activities of the
underground organizations, so nothing he might have said could
put any of them in danger.
Degrelle returned to Madrid, his mind relatively at rest. This
was in April 1961, when the Eichmann trial had just begun. De-
grelle’sname was not mentioned, and he could reasonably sup-
pose he would continue to be left alone. He had no idea of the
curious commando being formed in Paris —aimed at kidnapping
him.

The guiding spirit behind was an Israeli, Zvi Aldubi,

this plot
a tall, charming, confident young man. According to some of his
friends, he had been closely connected with the Israeli Secret
Service in the past —yet, later; as a journalist, he managed to
antagonize this service.
Aldubi was a clever, resourceful with dash and
journalist,
energy; he also had defects resulting from those very qualities.
He pursued the sensational, with little regard for scruples. When
news of Eichmann’s capture broke he happened to be in New
York. He saw his chance and jumped at it, cleverly putting to-
gether various reports and information about the kidnapping and,
in collaboration with his friend Ephraim Katz and the American
writer Quentin Reynolds, in record time brought out a book
called Eichmann the Minister of Death. A number of passages in
,

the book were later found erroneous, but the book became a best
seller and Look and other magazines published long extracts from
it.
The Degrelle Fiasco T
93
«

Aldubi saw that he was onto something. Early in 1961 he

went to Israel and got together a team of journalists to cover the
preliminaries to the Eichmann trial. They produced a series of
excellent articles which had a well-deserved success.
Aldubi saw future possibilities. It was fine to have the talent
and imagination (perhaps too much imagination) to recount the
exploits of others. Now he wanted to bring off a coup himself
and write a book about He
had had the idea for some time.
that.
An old riddle had been revived when Eichmann had fallen into
—
the hands of his judges what had become of Hitler’s “Gray
Eminence,” Martin Bormann? To find Bormann would be a great
scoop for a journalist, especially one who had already achieved
considerable fame for his articles on Eichmann and the trial.

Aldubi decided to act, and he had his plan all ready.

—
He guessed and he was not far wrong that Leon Degrelle —
was in some way in touch with Bormann and knew where he had
gone. So he would kidnap Degrelle, make him talk, then hand him
—
over to the Belgian authorities and go after Bormann.
The logic of the plan was incontestable. But first he had to get
hold of Degrelle, and then the Belgian had to divulge the infor-
mation that Aldubi wanted. Admittedly, even if Degrelle did
not talk, his capture alone would bring fame to the kidnappers.
And while Aldubi was, above all, a journalist after a scoop, as a
Jew he undoubtedly wanted a war criminal such as Bormann or
the former head of the Belgian Fascists brought to justice.
Money was needed, of course — a lot of it. Some of his friends
say that Look gave Aldubi an advance of several thousand dol-
lars. Others say that a large publishing house, a film producer,
and a German newspaper were also fairy godmothers to “Opera-
tion Degrelle.”
All self-respecting operations of this kind are given a code
name, and one became “Custard Tart.” The man behind this
this
appellation was an Israeli writer, Igal Mussenzon, who loved a
joke. He had been a lieutenant in the Falmach shock battalion,
then a police officer. He had written adventure stories for chil-
dren and more serious books which had been published in Israel
and had met with some success; he was a playwright, too. Then
194 THE AVENGERS

he had gone to try his luck in the United States, and Aldubi ran
into him in New York—where his luck was rather slow in com-
ing— and persuaded him to join the scheme.
Igal Mussenzon told me later: thought that Aldubi was a
“I
member of the Israeli Secret Service. He came to see me one day
and proposed that I take an active part in a scheme to kidnap
Leon Degrelle. He spoke as though he were acting on behalf of the
Israeligovernment. I was also to collaborate with him in writing
a detailed account of the operation, which would later be made
into a book. Eichmann had just been captured, and I thought it
quite natural for the Secret Service to strike again, this time
aiming at Aldubi outlined his plan to kidnap De-
Degrelle. —
grelle, take him to France, then hand him over to the Belgian
authorities. He was very insistent on the fact that Degrelle corre-
sponded with Bormann and that through the former we would
get on Borm aim’s trail. I agreed to take part. Aldubi took me
to a bank in Manhattan where I spent hours signing about ten
thousand dollars’ worth of traveler’s checks. Then we sailed for
France on the Liberte .”
The Israeli secret services had
no hand at all in Operation
Degrelle, but to suggest that they were behind it inspired the
trust of men Aldubi recruited.
After Igal Mussenzon came his son Avital, and then the head
of an international organization of former Resistance members, a
Belgian named Hubert Halin. This hero of the Belgian Resistance
had been hoping for years to bring Degrelle to justice. “Even if
Aldubi had not led me to understand that he was acting on
behalf of the Israeli government, I would still have agreed to
help him,” Hubert Halin said later. “Just as I am still ready to
support any attempt at the same thing.” Halin was able to supply
Aldubi with information about Degrelle and his Spanish hide-
out.
The members of “Custard Tart” prepared false identification
papers, enabling them to cross frontiers. A lonely house in Bel-
gium would be Degrelle’s few days, while his
prison for a
kidnappers interrogated him before turning him over to the po-
lice.

But first the commando needed more strength. Aldubi went

The Degrelle Fiasco *95
«

to France, where, a senior officer in the counter-espionage service

put him in touch with a French journalist, Jacques Feinson, a Jew
and strongly anti-racist. They met at a sidewalk cafe in Paris.
Aldubi explained that the affair was comparatively simple but
that he needed ten resolute young people. “Fve had excellent
accounts of you,” he told Feinson, “and I think ^ou would make
an admirable second in command of the operation.” Feinson was
won over: “At the end of that first conversation, I found myself
shaking hands with Aldubi and promising him that I would do
all I could for the success of the operation.”
Other people enrolled in the scheme included a former body-
guard of General de Gaulle, a civil servant lately in Algeria, a
retired police officer who promised to supply firearms, the mys-
terious Monsieur F. who had chased after Bormann in Brazil a
few years previously, and two very pleasant young ladies answer-
ing to the names of Barbara and Anita. Transport included a red
Simca sports car and a handsome white yacht.
One of the group was a mysterious man who constantly puffed
on his pipe and never said a word. Aldubi addressed him re-
spectfully as “Colonel.” The “Colonel” was Igal Mussenzon
and as he did not speak French, there was little point in his trying
to talk with the other members of the group.
Aldubi made a trip to Switzerland, and by passing himself off
as a Lebanese journalist succeeded in obtaining some more infor-
mation about Degrelle and Bormann from a pro-Nazi Swiss
named Genot, whom he met at Lausanne. Then he called his
group together, and one evening in a Paris apartment, behind
locked doors and closed shutters, he went over the plan of action
with them. Degrelle was known to be living under a false name at
a lonely house at Constantina, a village near Seville. Former
members of the Walloon Division guarded the place, but De-
grelle was in the habit of going for a bicycle ride every morning,
along country lanes and woodland paths. He would be seized
while out on one of these morning rides. The group, which now
numbered eight, would make ways to Madrid and
their separate
wait for Aldubi and Feinson, who would arrive by train or in the
red Simca. Then they would all go to Seville and kidnap Degrelle,
who would be drugged and put in a car and driven toward the
196 THE AVENGERS

coast. But on the way, to lose any possible pursuers, he would be

transferred to another car and then to a third. The yacht would
be waiting in the little and would set sail for
harbor at Calpe,

France as soon as Degrelle was on board. He would be landed at a

deserted spot on the French coast and kept prisoner until taken to
Belgium.
With members of the group
the plan thus sketched out, the
were given their various parts to play. Igal Mussenzon was in-
structed to make his way to Tarragona, where the yacht was then
docked, and to sail with it to Calpe.
Midnight, June 1, 1961, was zero hour. Everyone set off sepa-
rately for the Spanish frontier, except Mussenzon, Aldubi, and
Feinson, who were all Mussenzon was going to
in Marseilles.
travel by train to Barcelona, and the other two were going by
road. They took Mussenzon to the main railway station in the
Simca, and he noticed that eight revolvers were hidden away in
it. He asked Aldubi if this were necessary, for the success or

failure of the kidnapping did not depend on the use of weapons,

and to carry them only added risks. Aldubi just shrugged, but
events were to prove Mussenzon’s fears well founded.
Mussenzon had no trouble on his journey. He reached Tar-
ragona without incident and went aboard the yacht, whose cap-
tain was a Dane living in Majorca.
Aldubi and Feinson, however, were not as fortunate. As they
drove up the winding road to the Spanish frontier post of
Lapartos, on June 3, Feinson again expressed doubts. He had said
at the final meeting of the group that he was concerned because
too many people were involved. Aldubi was tense and pale, too.
“I expect you’re right,” he said. “But the two leaders of the
operation can hardly draw back when their men are already on
the way.”
At the frontier post a customs officer asked them for their
papers and then retired into his office. A few moments later, a
police officer came out and told Feinson to pull over to the side
and let other cars pass. Feinson did so,and right after he stopped
the car, four or five police officers surrounded it, drawing their
guns. Aldubi and Feinson, hands raised, were led into the build-
ing. The police searched the Simca and found the revolvers, am-
The Degrelle Fiasco l
97

munition, and a pair of handcuffs. The two men were at once

placed under arrest and the police started questioning them.
“The Spanish police slapped our faces and knocked us about,”
said Feinson, telling the story later.“They kept shooting ques-
Who sent you? How
tions at us. do you know that Degrelle is in
Spain? How many men are taking part in the operation? We
didn’t answer them. Besides, even if we had told them, we
wouldn’t have taught them very much, for the Spaniards knew
practically everything already. They knew our names and what
we were aiming to do. About the only things they didn’t know
were how many of us were involved and where we were all
going to meet.”
There was no doubt that someone had betrayed them.

Meanwhile, Mussenzon was waiting. After twelve days at Calpe

aboard the white yacht, he grew impatient and a little worried.
There was neither sign nor news of Aldubi and his men.
Mussenzon noticed some men who seemed to spend the whole
day fishing on the docks, but who showed great interest in the
yacht and the people aboard. He became more worried, and de-
cided it was time to leave. The only money he had was a hundred-
dollar bill kept in reserve in his shoe. He went ashore, caught a
bus to Valencia, and then took a train to Barcelona. Several times
during the journey he had the impression that he was being fol-
lowed, but nothing happened until he reached Barcelona. He had
hardly stepped from the train when he saw some men, obviously
plainclothes detectives, coming along the platform towards him.
They said he was to go with them; but Mussenzon kept his wits
and told these Spanish police officers that he was in the police
too. As proof, he produced an old letter signed by the Israeli
Minister for Police, Shitrit, which said that Igal Mussenzon, the
celebrated writer, was a police officer and that the Minister de-
sired him to be given every assistance whenever the need arose.
But, nevertheless,Mussenzon was taken to the police station.
The police alleged that he was engaged in drug smuggling, but
they soon turned to the real matter. Did he know Zvi Aldubi?
What had he come to Spain for? Who was he going to meet?
What did he know about Leon Degrelle?
198 THE AVENGERS

Mussenzon admitted nothing, and end he was set free.

in the
He left Spain for France as soon as possible, and when he reached
Paris he telephoned a woman friend of Aldubi, and she told him
that the leader of Operation Custard Tart had been arrested in
Spain.
Aldubi and Feinson were put on trial. They could hardly be
accused of attempting to kidnap Degrelle, as the Spanish authori-
ties were still officially maintaining that he was not in the coun-

try. Instead, the two were charged with attempting to organize a

subversive movement in Spain. And on August 10, 1961, Aldubi
was given a prison sentence of nine years and Feinson of six
years.
The other members of the group who had succeeded in getting
back to France naturally tried to discover their betrayer. But
they never succeeded. There had probably been a double agent
among the Spanish Republicans in Paris who were told about the
plan. Aldubi certainly had talked too much.
Jacques Feinson was released from his Spanish prison after
serving two and a half years of his sentence, and Aldubi was
few months later.
released a
In August 1962, a year after the two leaders of the plot had
been sentenced, Leon Degrelle appeared at his daughter’s wed-
ding wearing his Waffen SS uniform with all his medals and
decorations.
21

THE ZENTRALSTELLE

In 1956 the eleven Lander of West Germany

up an organiza-
set
tion to coordinate the work of tracking down Nazi criminals. It
was named Zentralstelle and the man appointed director was
,

Erwin Schule. In the next few years he became known as the

most zealous and determined Nazi-hunter in Germany.
Schule read the transcript of the Nuremberg Trials and ex-
amined the files of the American Documentation Center in West
Berlin. He United States to study archives in the
also visited the
Pentagon. On his return to Germany he established his headquar-
ters at Ludwigsburg, in Wiirtemberg. On the wall of his office
was a huge map of Hitler’s Germany with all of the local
branches of the Gestapo circled in red and the concentration
camps in yellow. He formed detectives into teams that worked
with great thoroughness. Reports were drawn up on the crimes
committed by the Einsatzgruppen on the massacres in Poland,
;

Yugoslavia, Greece, Norway, France, Holland, and Denmark; on

the “Reinhard Action,” in the course of which a great number of
Jews had been executed; on the “Night of the Broken Glass”; on
the large-scale “euthanasia” —
on all of the mass crimes committed
during the Hitler regime.
One of the chief successes of the Zentralstelle was the arrest of
General Ehrlinger.
This SS officer had been one of the commanders of the sinister
Einsatzgruppen organized by Himmler and sent to German-
,

occupied territories in the east. Their mission was to exterminate

the civilian population in regions which had been marked for
colonization by Germans. Ehrlinger had carried out his disgust-
ing task in Russia— more than two thousand men, women, and

199
200 THE AVENGERS

children were massacred on his orders and buried in huge com-

munal graves.
Then the chill wind of defeat began to blow, Ehrlinger re-
turned to the scene of his crimes with special squads of Russian
prisoners and Jews who were set to work digging up the
corpses,which were then incinerated. Afterwards, the Russians
and Jews were shot by the SS and their bodies burned. Ehrlinger
thus thought that all trace of his crimes had been removed.
Ehrlinger disappeared after the German surrender. Actually he
was still in the country, in a POW camp, but as Corporal Erich
Froscher, just one of millions of other prisoners. Armed with
false papers, he had successfully passed through all Allied checks.
After from the camp, Corporal Froscher remained
his release
in Germany and worked as a farm laborer for several years. Then
he got a job at an American airbase in southern Germany. In
1951 he thought that all danger had passed. He resumed his real
identity,and like so many of his kind, got in touch with the
underground former SS organizations. Through them, he was
given a job as cashier in a casino on Lake Constance. In 1954 he
became a car salesman at Karlsruhe.
Thirteen years had passed since the horror in Russia, and
Ehrlinger had every reason to suppose that he was safe from
punishment. However, the Z entralstelle was on his track. One
December evening in 1958, three plainclothes detectives entered
his office. One of them was a vigorous, bald-headed man with

—
piercing eyes and thin lips Erwin Schule. “Erich Ehrlinger,” he
said, “I arrest you on a charge of murdering two thousand one

hundred and twenty people.”

—
Ehrlinger was tried and sentenced to twelve years’ imprison-
ment.

The Z entralstelle was touch with organizations in other

in
countries which were engaged in similar activities, and had a
particularly fruitful association with the Yad Vashem Institute in
Israel and the Jewish hunters.
One of the lawyers in the Z entralstelle says: “Our work
was really like fitting together the pieces of a jigsaw puzzle. Each
interrogation added a few more names to our lists. We opened a
The Zentralstelle 201

fileon each one and started inquiries. One inquiry might lead us
into a dozen countries.”
In 1961 the Zentralstelle announced its results to date. Out of
750 cases that had been opened, 450 were successfully concluded.
Their task was difficult, with many witnesses dead and others
unwilling to talk, fearing to be accused in their turn. And a
section of the German population, especially those who had lived
through the Nazi regime, was opposed to digging up the detesta-
ble past.
The case of Feldwebel Mueller is a good example of the diffi-

culties the Zentralstelle encountered.

During the war, Mueller had been in charge of the guards at
three different concentration camps in Central Europe. His
whereabouts were unknown, and the only information that the
survivors of the camps could give about him was his name, rank,
—
and hometown Heidelberg.
Erwin Schule and his men had little to go on, but they began
by making inquiries in Heidelberg. There were about fifteen
hundred Muellers in the town! But then the Israelis came into the
picture —they
had discovered an ex-prisoner to whom Mueller
had given the job of sending parcels to his wife, and the man
remembered the address. It was in Heidelberg. A detective from
the Zentralstelle called at the house, but found that Mueller no
longer lived there. His wife had reported him “missing” to the
Heidelberg authorities, and she herself had left the town and
gone to live at Limbach. The detective went to Limbach and
rang at the door of Mueller’s widow. In the house he found a
—
man in the best of health ex-Feldwebel Mueller. Arrested then
and there, Mueller was eventually sentenced to life imprison-
ment.
Another of Erwin Schule’s successes was the arrest of Wilhelm
Koppe.
This senior police official, holding the rank of Brigade-Fuehrer
in the SS, was responsible for the murder of 350,000 people in
Chelmno extermination camp. After the war, Koppe, like Ehr-
linger, had become one of the Untergetauchten he had gone —
underground, remaining in Germany under an assumed name. As
Heinz Lohman, he founded a prosperous business and became
202 THE AVENGERS

friendly with several highly placed persons in the West German

government. He was even introduced to Chancellor Adenauer,
and in fact met him on several occasions. %

But fate, in the person of Erwin Schule, caught up with him.

Unmasked by the Z entralstelle, Wilhelm Koppe was arrested on
January 12, i960.

Karl Egon Neumann was well liked in the village of Dassen-

dorf, on the edge of Sachsenwald Forest. had arrived there He
with many other refugees fleeing before the advancing Red
Army. Neumann, a good-looking, quiet man, had stayed on and
was soon accepted by the villagers. He got a job as woodcutter
on Prince Otto von Bismarck’s estate. People said that Neumann
could have found employment better suited to his abilities in the
nearby city of Hamburg, but that he preferred working in the
forest because he was fond of animals.
It was true that he was an animal lover. The villagers would

speak feelingly of the evening they saw Neumann carry an in-

jured deer back to his cabin. He tended the animal until it was
well again, as he did several birds that he picked up and took to
his cabin.
After a time, Neumann moved charming bungalow that he
to a
had built himself. A young blonde often came from Hamburg to
stay with him. They spent peaceful, uneventful days together at
the neat, clean bungalow in its small but well-kept garden.
This bucolic existence came to an end on December 20, i960.
Soon after daybreak, while the forest was still thick with mist,
Neumann was at work cutting down trees with a mechanical saw
when three men suddenly appeared at his side. “Put your hands
up!” one of them cried. And handcuffs were snapped onto this
animal lover.
“Your name is Richard Baer, isn’t it?” said one of the police
officers.

“No, it’s Karl Egon Neumann,” replied the woodcutter indig-

nantly.
He was taken back to the bungalow. “What happened, Pappi?”
the blonde exclaimed anxiously on seeing him return unexpect-
The Zentralstelle 203

edly and in such company. He raised his hands in a hopeless

gesture. Then he drew himself up and said loftily to the
stiffly

police officers: “All right, I admit I’m Richard Baer. But I’m an
ex-officer and I expect to be treated with the respect due to my
rank.” And he held out his hands for the handcuffs to be taken
off. But the police, now certain they had the right man, were
little inclined to do so.
Richard Baer had been apprenticed to a baker when he joined
the Nazi Party in 1930. Three years later he had joined the SS
and began his career as a guard at Dachau concentration camp.
In May 1944 he had been appointed camp commandant at Ausch-
witz, succeeding Rudolf Hess.
The advancing Russians began to threaten the area in late Oc-
tober, and in January Richard Baer evacuated the camp.
1945,
The 64,000 prisoners he had not had time to exterminate were
marched in one long, straggling column to the camp at Gross
Rosen. Many never reached it; those who fell exhausted by the
roadside were at once shot by the SS guards.
Richard Baer disappeared at the end of the war, and the Allied
authorities believedhim dead. The two previous camp comman-
dants at Auschwitz, Rudolf Hess and Liebehenschel, were cap-
tured and handed over to the Polish authorities. They were both
hanged on the site of the camp where they had sent so many to
their deaths.
After the capture of Eichmann, the German authorities de-
cided to reopen the Baer file, for there was good reason to believe
that he was still alive. The Public Prosecutor at Frankfurt, Heinz
Wolf (who gave me the full story), personally took charge of
the investigations. had been brought to his attention that Baer’s
It

wife, Josepha, had never applied for the pension to which she was
entitled as an officer’s widow, although she claimed that her hus-
band was dead. Other information that came to light persuaded
Wolf reward of 10,000 marks ($2,500) to anyone who
to offer a
disclosed the whereabouts of Richard Baer. Many letters and
telephone calls came as a result of the offer, but the great major-
ity failed to add anything new to the case. Five informants, how-
ever, gave a strong lead that Baer was hiding in the neighborhood
204 THE AVENGERS

of Dassendorf. Inquiries were concentrated on that area. Finally,

cherchez la femme led to Baer’s capture. Detectives followed the
beautifuEblonde, Josepha Baer, on her frequent trips into the
country from Hamburg, and thus discovered the bungalow
where Karl Egon Neumann, the animal lover, was living.
At about the same time, twenty-one of Baer’s former under-
lings at Auschwitz were arrested. When their trial opened at
Frankfurt, the ex-camp commandant was not with them. He had
died in his cell in June 1963.

The Zentralstelleundoubtedly did good work. By delving into

the past of thousands of Germans, crimes were brought to light
that their perpetrators had thought forgotten forever. But there
—
was an omission there were no investigations into the past his-
tories of the men directing the Zentralstelle.
Little was known of Erwin Schule’s past history until informa-
tion came ended his career as a hunter. It
to light that abruptly
had been known that he studied law before the war and that
while fighting on the Russian front he had been made a prisoner
and had spent five years in Russian hands. When he was released,
he had returned to West Germany and had been appointed Di-
rector of Public Prosecutions at Stuttgart.
The scandal broke in 1965, while Schule was on a visit to
Poland. Moscow accused the head of the Zentralstelle the ,
man
who had been relentlessly tracking down Nazi criminals for
years, of having been a Nazi and a criminal himself. The Russians
claimed that he was one of those responsible for the massacre of a
thousand men, women, and children at Jitomir.
This accusation caused a great stir in West Germany. A check
was made and proof found that Schule indeed had been a member
of the Nazi Party. But the story of his taking part in the massacre
at Jitomir appeared to be a complete fabrication.
“Schule was foolish to conceal his past history,” Hermann
Langbein said to me. “He was never an active member of the
Nazi Party, and his record would not have prevented him from
—
becoming what he did become a first-rate hunter of Nazi crimi-
nals who was unreservedly appreciated by Israel and by former
The Zentralstelle 205

Resistants. But he should have told the truth about himself at the
start.”
As a result,Erwin Schule had to leave his post at the Central-
stelle and give up the activities which he had pursued so vigor-
ously and so effectively.
DOCTORS OF DEATH

At the end of ]une 1945, about seven weeks after the German
surrender, an American officer was passing through Kaufbeuren,
a small town some sixty miles south of Munich, when he noticed
a large, gloomy building with a sign over the gateway: “Mental
Home. Nursing Establishment. No Admittance.” The building
stood a short distance from the town and had the appearance of a
prison. There was no sign of life, and it had such a dismal air that
the officer asked a local boy what went on at the “Home.” The
lad shrugged and said, “That’s where they get killed.”
Who were “they,” the wondered? He reported the
officer
incident, and the Army Medical Corps sent two officers, Major
Linick and Captain Murphy, with a score of men to investigate.
When they entered they came upon horrors difficult to imag-
ine.
It was indeed a home for the infirm and feebleminded. There
were subnormal children, the mentally deficient of all ages, and
weak old men lying in bunks. The majority were near death,
their hearts beating feebly. There was also a squad of nurses, who
did not seem at all worried or embarrassed by the sudden arrival
of the American soldiers. Some of the nurses calmly took the
officers to the morgue and showed them several bodies in coffins.
One of the officers asked the head nurse, whose name was
Woerle, if they had all died from natural causes. “No,” she re-
plied, “we killed them.”
The Americans could hardly believe their ears. The coffins had
not been nailed down and they saw that some of the bodies were
children — and not yet cold.
The establishment was a home only in name, just one of the
206
Doctors of Death 207

many murder factories where the Nazi program of “euthanasia”

was carried out.
“I killed about 210 children over a period of two years,” Nurse
Woerle coldly declared. “I was paid an extra thirty-five marks a
month for it. Have I done anything wrong? I don’t think so.”
Another of the nurses, Olga Rittler, readily admitted that she
had killed between thirty and forty subnormal children. She,
too, declared that there was nothing reprehensible about what she
had done.
There were also doctors at the Kaufbeuren “Mental Home.”
One of them told the Americans that experiments were carried
out there to improve the German race. The sick who were to be
put to death were either given a lethal injection or were left to
starve. In the former case, the patient died after two to five days.
In the latter, the “treatment” could last for three months.
The Americans found the records and files of the establish-
ment, and an examination of them showed that it came under the
Ministry of the Interior, that the poison for the injections was
sent directly from Berlin, and that the patients came from all
over Germany. They also discovered that the inhabitants of
Kaufbeuren were well aware of what went on inside this “home”
and were in no way shocked or indignant. They learned, too, that
the majority of the doctors and nurses were not members of the
Nazi Party. None of them showed the slightest sign of guilt.
The eighteen American soldiers who had entered this hell on
July 3 made a combined request to be allowed to shoot the mur-
derers immediately. It was, of course, refused.
Kaufbeuren was neither the most dreadful nor the largest of
such establishments in Germany. What was so horrible about this
one in particular was that there were still men and women, two
months after the collapse of the Reich, continuing to carry out
with the same blind “professional conscientiousness” the barbaric
orders given when Hitler was still alive. One wonders how much
longer the “experiments” and the “treatment” would have gone
on if the Americans had not forced their way in.

The Nazi program of “euthanasia” had begun before the war.

In 1939 a certain Frau Maria Zey, a German subject and the
208 THE AVENGERS
Si
*1
\ i

mother of an eight-year-old mentally retarded boy but only —

slightly retarded, for he went to the primary school was in- —
formed By the Nazi authorities that she was to take her son to a
special clinic for treatment. It was in fact an order. Frau Zey was
told that in no circumstances was she to visit her son at the clinic
or to ask about the treatment, as it was a medical secret.
A month later, Frau Zey received an official letter telling her
that the boy had died of acute pneumonia and that, in accordance
with regulations, the body had been cremated. If she so desired,
Frau Zey would be sent the urn containing her son’s ashes, also
his clothes.
She found a letter written by her son in a pocket of his coat.
“Dear Mummy, they’ve taken everything from me and locked
me in. I don’t want to stay here. Please, Mummy, take me back
home. .
.” .

The letter had reached her too late. Like thousands of other
sick, infirm, and disabled, Frau Zey’s son had been taken in a
closed van marked “Hospital Transport” to Hadamar castle.
There a team of “specialists” killed the hapless patients, either by
shooting them in the back of the neck or by gassing them.
The patients were supposed to be incurables, a word the Nazis
interpreted broadly. In their eyes, to be a Jew was to be in-
curably diseased, so they automatically put Jews to death. Other
categories of Germans, too, suffered from such loose interpreta-
tions.For instance, the admittance card of a German Gentile
named Otto Husen read: “Age, 47. Mentally ill, incurable. Op-
posed to the State and the ideas of National Socialism. Guilty of
many political offenses.”
When the Fuehrer had signed the decree instituting the
Gnadentod the program of “euthanasia,” gas chambers and in-
,

cinerators were installed at a number of places: at Grafeneck

castle, which belonged to the Samaritans of Stuttgart; at Hada-

mar castle, near Linz; at the psychiatric hospitals at Sonnestein,

Bernburg, and Brandenburg; and at several smaller establish-
ments. Each of these centers was provided with an SS guard. To
the sign “Nursing Establishment” was sometimes added another
saying “Beware of Epidemics.”
Between 200,000 and 270,000 people are believed to have
 «

Doctors of Death 209

perished under this Gnadentod program. Great precautions were

taken to keep its real nature a secret. It was given a code name,
Aktion T-4 (the headquarters was at 4 Tiergartenstrasse, Berlin).
The patients were taken to the various extermination centers in
grey coaches of the Gemeinniitzige Transport Aktiengesell-
schaft. In due course, the next of kin received a printed notice
that had been filled in as necessary:
“We regret to inform you that your . . . ,
date of birth . . . ,

transferred to this establishment on ... ,

died unexpectedly on . . .

All our efforts to save him/her were in vain. Considering the

serious and incurable nature of the illness, the deceased has been
spared permanent hospitalization and his/her death must be re-
garded as a deliverance. Because of the danger of an epidemic, we
were obliged to cremate the body immediately, in accordance
with police regulations.”
Despite all the precautions and lies, it would have been very
surprising if such a program had remained secret. The inhabitants
of Hadamar, for example, knew the significance of the thick
black smoke that issued from the chimneys of the “Nursing Es-
tablishment.” So much so, that children at play would shout at
each other: “You’re crazy! You’ll get sent to the ovens up at the
castle!”

Aktion T-4 was headed by a group of doctors and professors.

The one who made final decisions, Professor de Crinis, com-
mitted suicide in 1945. His signature can be seen on thousands of
reports and orders for extermination, together with that of the
“Medical Director of Operation Gnadentod Professor Werner
Heyde.
Heyde was a specialist in mental disorders. He had been a
member of the special commission which had visited concentra-
tion camps in 1941 and made thousands of false diagnoses, thus
permitting the “legal” murder of Jews, political prisoners, and
others. In one camp alone, Buchenwald, twelve hundred Jews
were thus classified insane, in November 1941, and all went to
their deaths —by “euthanasia.”
In the last months of the war, Werner Heyde was in charge of
a hospital for the SS at Wurzburg. When the Allies drew near,
 \
2 10 THE AVENGERS
f
A

the hospital Grosten castle in Denmark. (This is

was evacuated to
the place, previously mentioned, where Martin Bormann is be-
lieved toshave been hidden for a time by Heyde.)
Heyde was captured by the British and sent to a POW
camp at
Gadeland, in Schleswig-Holstein. However, when the “doctors
of death” were put on Nuremberg, Heyde was not among
trial at

them. He had escaped from custody by jumping from the mili-

tary police jeep taking him from Frankfurt to Wurzburg.
Heyde, though absent, was sentenced to death. Many attempts
to trace him were made during the next twelve years, but always
without result. He had taken steps to ensure that he would be
presumed dead, and his wife Erika succeeded in obtaining a war
widow’s pension on presentation of his death certificate, properly
attested.
He was far from dead. He
had merely changed his identity.
Two of his fellow prisoners at Gadeland, Bayer and Hein, had
become respectively mayor and registrar of the town of Ploen, in
Schleswig-Holstein. They gave Heyde a legalized identification
card in the name of Fritz Sawade, a person from Saxony long
dead.
In those immediate postwar years, Schleswig-Holstein was the
one land where Nazis were able to remain practically in the open,
with the backing of a considerable section of the population.
Heyde took up his old profession, despite the fact that as “Fritz
Sawade” he had no medical diplomas. He first obtained the post
of medical officer at a school in Flensburg, then was appointed
medical consultant to an assurance institute and to the Social
Security Board for the Schleswig region. The officials who ap-
pointed Fritz Sawade to these important positions did not con-
sider it necessary to ask for his qualifications, for they knew very
well who he was.
Over the years, “Fritz Sawade” came to be greatly respected
and liked by his fellow citizens. His neighbors, who knew no
more of his past than what the good doctor cared to tell them,
sympathized with him for the terrible tragedy which had shat-
tered his life —
his wife and two children had been killed by the
Russians during the advance on Berlin.
Doctors of Death 2 1

In 1954, as the result of a quarrel with Sawade, a colleague of

his, Professor Kreutzfeld, the head of a clinic for nervous dis-

orders at Kiel, wrote to the chairman of the Regional Board, Dr.

Burech. He made the sensational disclosure that Fritz
*
Sawade was
in fact Professor Werner Heyde, who had been sentenced to
death at Nuremberg. Five weeks later, Kreutzfeld received a
reply to his letter — a curt note from the chairman of the Board
declaring that the information was of no interest.
Another five years passed before the police called at Dr. Fritz
Sawade’s house in Flensburg, as a result of fresh inquiries into the
Heyde case. But he had fled two days previously, on November
5, Sawade-Heyde had friends in high places who had
1959.
warned him in time.
Nevertheless, there was proof that Heyde was still alive. A
great hunt for him was set afoot by those authorities strongly
opposed to any revival of Nazism. A watch was kept at airports
and frontier posts. Heyde gave himself up a few days later, prob-
ably tired of having to flee from town to town and unable to
leave the country. He was charged with the murder of twelve
thousand people.
Other doctors implicated in the Nazi program of “euthanasia”
were to be tried at the same time. Dr. Friedrich Tillmann and Dr.
Hans HefTelmann were already in custody, and on November 7,
i960, another “doctor of death,” Bernhardt Bohne, was arrested
in Frankfurt.
However, a series of incidents, typical of this kind of case in
Germany, hindered the course of justice. It took a long time to
reach the courts. And
July 1963, Dr. Bohne, released on bail,
in
promptly took advantage of the opportunity to flee to Argentina.
On February 1964, ten days before the trial was at last due to
—
open, Dr. Tillmann also out on bail “fell” from an eighth-
—
story window in Cologne and was killed instantly. On the follow-
ing day, Werner Heyde was found dead in his cell, hanging from
a wall radiator.
What was the significance of this flight and these sudden
deaths?
The Public Prosecutor of the Land of Hesse, Dr. Fritz Bauer,
2 12 THE AVENGERS
''
]
\

told journalists that Bohnfi had no money of his own and that his
bail and means of flight to South America must have been pro-
vided brothers.
When I myself interviewed Dr. Bauer in Frankfurt, he told
me: “The German medical association had come to a secret deci-
sion that the trial of Heyde and his accomplices must not take
place, as it would have disgraced the whole medical profession. It
is highly probable that Dr. Tillmann was pushed out of the win-

dow. But I do believe that Heyde actually committed suicide. He

hanged himself five minutes after being told of Tillmann’s death.”
However, saw the matter differently. “I
special service agents
am quite sure that Heyde did not commit suicide,” one of them
said to me. “He knew that he was facing a heavy sentence.
Shortly before the trial was due to open, he agreed to give evi-
dence for the prosecution, and to make various disclosures about
underground Nazi organizations and the hideouts of Nazi leaders
still at liberty. So the Nazis had to prevent him from talking at all
costs.
“After his death, a quantity of pills and medicine was found in
his cell. He could easily have used them to kill himself, in the
same way asother prominent Nazis. So why should he choose to
—
hang himself if he had really decided to end his life? We looked
into the circumstances of his death, and came to the conclusion
that agents of Die Spinne or of some organization that has suc-
ceeded it managed to get into Heyde’s cell, aided and abetted by
prison staff, and then executed him.”
How much credence can be given to this? I put the question to
a hunter of Nazis.
“Don’t forget that Heyde had provided Martin Bormann with
a refuge at the hospital in Grosten castle,” he replied. “So it’s
quite likely that he knew some of the details of Bormann’s flight.
If he had talked, he could have given evidence to prove that
Bormann’s death in Berlin was just a fake.
“The groups of ex-Nazis did all they could to protect Heyde
and to make sure that he was not brought to trial. They warned
him in time when the police went to arrest him. They even tried
to arrange his escape from prison in 1963. As soon as they heard
that Heyde had decided to tell all he knew, in the hope of getting
Doctors of Death 2I 3

a lighter sentence, there was only one way out they had to —
silence him. Heyde knew too much. The Nazis killed him to save
themselves.”
Murder or suicide, Heyde took the key to th£ mystery with
him to the grave.

Hans had been the head doctor at Buchenwald concen-

Eisele
tration camp, and was sentenced to death in 1945 for his part in
the massacre of prisoners. As in many similar cases, the death
sentence was commuted to life imprisonment which lasted —
seven years. Eisele was released in 1952. The Bavarian authorities
were even thoughtful enough to pay him four thousand marks
($1,000) as compensation for “losses due to the war” and to make
him a loan of 25,000 marks to enable him to set up a practice in
the neighborhood of Munich.
In the course of the Sommer Bayreuth in 1958, fresh
trial at

evidence came to light about the crimes committed by Eisele.

Warned, he quickly disappeared, leaving false trails behind him.
Telegrams telling of his presence at Diisseldorf and at Heidelberg
were received by the police, when he was actually on board the
Italian ship Esperia, which had sailed from Genoa for Alexandria
on June 27, 1958. Eisele later opened a clinic in Cairo.
The escape and the false trails that hindered the police in their
search constituted another success for the underground Nazi
organizations. The news of Eisele’s flight from Germany raised
many from the
protests press. It had become a little too obvious
that the Nazis, whether in prison or not, were aided and abetted
in many places.
However, not were as fortunate as Eisele. His deputy at
all

Buchenwald, Dr. Erich Wagner, equally guilty of murdering

prisoners, especially by had been captured by
lethal injections,
the Americans after the war and sent to an internment camp. He
had escaped, and from 1947 to 1954 practiced as a doctor in the
town of Sudbaden under the name of Zahn. He was arrested
again by the German police on August 5, 1958, and every precau-
tion was taken to ensure that he did not imitate his former su-
perior. And Wagner did not succeed in escaping. On March 23,

1959, he was found dead in his cell at Oberkirch prison, having

2 r
4 THE AVENGERS

slashed his wrists with a razor blade. But was it really a case of
suicide?
The long arm of the law was gradually hauling in the “doctors
of death.” But there were still greater criminals than either
Heyde or Wagner not yet behind bars.

The postman dropped a picture postcard in the letter box at 5

Weigandhof, Vienna, on February That was the address
15, 1962.
of Hermann Langbein. One side of the postcard showed tall palm
trees leaning toward a tropical sea, and the other bore a few

words in Polish: “Yes, the man you’re looking for is here. His
address Doctor H. Sch., c/o Chief Medical Officer, Ministry
is:

of Health, P.O. Box M. 44, Accra, Ghana.”

Who was this mysterious Doctor H. Sch.?
The natives who lived in the Kete Krachi jungle in the north
of Ghana would have replied: “He’s Doctor Horst Schumann,
our Albert Schweitzer, our Oduryefo Pa, our good white doc-
tor!”
Almost a saint, in fact, was this with his
doctor who had settled
family in a remote part of West Africa, several days’ journey
from the nearest town. Malaria, mosquitoes, torrential rains, the
sticky heat of the tropics, and no other white man for ten miles
around. Dr. Schumann had built a hospital with forty beds and a
bungalow where he lived with his wife and three children. He
would show visitors the statutes of the World Health Organiza-
tion which were on one of the hospital walls, and there they
could read that a doctor has the obligation to raise humanity “to
the highest standard of health.”
The authority and skill of the good doctor, a hale, slim man
with long, gtntle hands, had soon earned him a good reputation.
The President of Ghana, Kwame Nkrumah, had spent three days
at the hospital while on an official visit, and had heartily con-
gratulated its creator.
However, this advocate of humanity’s well-being, this great
friend of the colored man, had not always displayed such noble
sentiments. Some years previously, when in Germany and ex-
perimenting on the best methods of sterilizing inferior breeds, he
had written, “With regard to men, castration by a surgical opera-
Doctors of Death 21 5

tion has proved to be the best method. It takes no more than six
to seven minutes, and is surer and quicker than sterilization by X-
rays.”
In 1939, as the young and brilliant director of the “Euthanasia
Institute” at Grafeneck, he had caused the death of eighty thou-
sand people “as was necessary to free the hospital beds for
it

—
German war-wounded” according to his own statement made
after his extradition from Ghana. Such a talented man could not
be wasted on “freeing hospital beds” forever, and in 1942 Himm-
ler had transferred him from Grafeneck to Auschwitz, where a
special team of doctors were being formed. Other members of
the team included Wirtz, Mengele, Weber, and Clauberg, and it
was in conjunction with the last, the doctor who had been given
Block io, that Schumann did his fiendish work. They experi-
mented on men and women to find the quickest method of ster-
ilization, by X-rays or surgery, and timed each operation. It

mattered little to them that many of their victims died as a con-

sequence, or were afterwards sent to the gas chambers, for there
was a continual supply of human material for their “experi-
ments.”
After the war, despite the fact that his name and exploits were
referred to on several occasions at the Nuremberg Trials, Dr.
Schumann settled down atGladbeck with his family and lived
there quietly until 1951, when he began to feel anxious for his
safety and left Germany. Some time later, journalists discovered
that he was working Lu-Yubu, in the Sudan.
at the hospital at
This caused a scandal, and Schumann moved on again. He stayed
for a time in Liberia, then in Nigeria, finally settling in Ghana.
Hermann Langbein had been on Schumann’s track for years. In
January 1962 an old friend of Langbein, a Pole named Piletzki
who had been with him in Auschwitz, was sent to West Africa as
a commercial attache. Langbein wrote to him: “My dear friend,

I’ve been told that Horst Schumann might be down there, not
very far from where you are. Would you please check? After all,
there can’t be so many German doctors in those parts. . .
.”

Itwas not very difficult for Piletzki to find Schumann’s retreat.

The German was not really trying to conceal himself, and even
had the audacity to say to journalists who ventured into the wilds
 THE AVENGERS

of Kete Krachi: “I agree that my name

Horst Schumann and
is

I’m a doctor, but Fve no connection with the assassin of the same
name who was active at Auschwitz. A name like mine is fairly
common in Germany, you know.”
It was a very poor defense, for there would be little difficulty
inproving that the Horst Schumann in Ghana and the one who
had been at Auschwitz were one and the same. But Schumann
was relying, and with good reason, on the protection of Ghana’s
strong man, President Nkrumah.
On receipt of the postcard from his Polish friend, Langbein
filed all the documentary evidence against Schumann and had it

sent to President Nkrumah, who was thus informed if he did —

—
not know already about the past history of the “good doctor.”
At the same time, the West German authorities made a firm
request for his extradition. But despite repeated demands, Schu-
mann remained in Ghana. He would very likely be there still, if
President Nkrumah had not been overthrown. A few months
later, the new Ghana government agreed to deport Schumann.

One day toward the end of 1966 this “doctor of death” a tired, —
—
thin man in his sixties now -arrived at Frankfurt airport accom-
panied by two detectives.

There was also Dr. Karl Babor.

At Gross Rosen concentration camp, his face had been the last
image of this world that those about to die had carried away with
them. Outside a hut, a doctor selected the prisoners who were
still fit for work. The others, the sick, the old, and the weak,

were hustled inside by the SS. There, in the antechamber to the

incinerators, stood a young man with the weary, sullen look that
comes from long periods at routine 'asks. He held a hypodermic
syringe in his hand. He gave each condemned man an injection of
phenol or prussic acid. The man fell dead, and two SS would pick
up the body and toss it into the incinerator.
Karl Babor had broken off his medical studies after three years
and left his university without a degree. He joined the SS and
was sent to Gross Rosen, where he spent the war years as an
assassin. He was already mentally unstable, and was further
 «
Doctors of Death 21J

affected by his macabre task. A sado-masochist, Karl Babor de-

cidedly was a mental case.
At the end of the war, SS Hauptsturm-Fuehrer Karl Babor was
taken prisoner by the French. On release from his POW camp he
went to Vienna and resumed his medical studies, tde obtained his
degree in 1949 and set up a practice in Gmunden, where he lived
quietly with his wife and young daughter until 1952. Then he
was denounced to the police by two former inmates at Gross
Rosen. But, once again, when the police went to arrest the war
criminal they found he had vanished from home.
Eleven years went by. Then one day in 1963 the following
advertisement appeared in the personal column of the Viennese
paper Der Kurier: “Doctor, 42 years of age, excellent situation
overseas, seeks young woman correspondent, view marriage.”
A young widow who read the advertisement wrote in reply. It
was the beginning of a love story. The “doctor overseas” wrote
and told her that he was a gynecologist at the Menelik Hospital in
Addis Ababa, that he was a widower, his wife having been killed
in a motor accident, and that he had a daughter, Dagmar, who
was studying in Paris. The letter was signed “Karl Babor,” but
this name meant nothing to the young widow.

The two corresponded for nearly a year, then Babor sent travel
tickets to the young woman, and a little later she arrived at Addis
Ababa. But when she set eyes on the man she was going to marry,
the young Viennese woman could not help shrinking back. He
looked sinister, half mad, like a character from one of Edgar
Allan Poe’s horror She found that he alternated between
stories.
fits of mad rage and moods of deep depression. He lived in a

gloomy, isolated house, and his only friends seemed to be the

crocodiles in a nearby river. He
appeared fascinated by these
reptiles, and sometimes spent hours just gazing at them. On other
occasions, when depressed, he would go to the zoo and tease and
hit the wild animals, as though trying to make them bite him.
—
The young woman had only one desire to return to Vienna as
soon as possible. And when she learned in Addis Ababa that her
fiance had been a doctor in aNazi concentration camp, she has-
tened to leave the country. On her return to Vienna she went
 8

2 1 THE AVENGERS
\

and told her nightmarish story to Simon Wisenthal, who had

been a prisoner at Gross Rosen camp for a time.
Hermann Langbein and the Austrian authorities had known
for a long time that Karl Babor was in Ethiopia. But no extradi-
tion treaty existed between that country and Austria, and the
attempts by the latter to obtain custody of Babor had been un-
successful.
Simon Wisenthal therefore decided to make the matter public.
Early in January 1964 he gave the whole story to the Vienna
correspondent of the New York Times and it circulated around
,

the world. Karl Babor was quick to reply. He told journalists that
all the accusations made against him were false. He even held a

press conference to announce that he intended to sue Simon

Wisenthal for libel, but added that unfortunately he did not have
money go to Vienna. Wisenthal retorted by sending a cable to
to
Babor: “Ask for reservation made for your ticket Ethiopian Air
Lines Addis Ababa stop board and lodging assured Vienna stop
Wisenthal.”
Would Babor accept the challenge and turn up in Vienna, or
woud he take flight again? He chose a third course. Five days
after he had received the cable, some American tourists on an
organized safari found the naked body of a white man in a croc-
odile-infested river. Karl Babor had shot himself through the
heart and at a spot where he could expect that his body would be
eaten by his “friends” the crocodiles. His clothes were found
neatly folded on the bank of the river.
 «

23

JOSEF MENGELE

However horrible the acts of Horst Schumann Karl Babor, and

,

others of their kind, they did not compare with those of another
doctor — one who is still alive, still free.

Josef Mengele was the chief doctor at Auschwitz, the one who
made the “selection.” He was the one with the ghastly joke:
“Here the Jews come in by the door and go out up the chim-
ney.” The one the Jewish deportees had to pass as soon as they
arrived at Oswiecim railway station. He was a handsome young
man, sleek and smiling, dressed in a tight-fitting SS uniform with
glistening black jack boots, white gloves, and a little polished
cane tucked under one arm. Day after day, he was always at his
post, watching the pitiful crowd of men, women, and children go
straggling past, all in the last stages of exhaustion from their
inhuman journey in cattle cars. He would point with his cane at
each person and direct them with one word —“right” or “left.”
Sometimes “right” meant the showers, sometimes “left,” but the
“showers” always meant the gas chambers. In the early days, the
killing was done with revolvers, but this method proved too
noisy and took too long, and a technically satisfactory method
had to be devised.
Over the years Josef Mengele thus had the power of life or
death over hundreds of thousands of human beings. He took only
a second to decide whether a prisoner was to live or die. He had a
sure eye and his attention never faltered as the victims filed past
him for hours on end. Smiling or whistling his favorite tune an —
air from Tosca —
Mengele seemed to enjoy killing people. The file
on him contains not only proof of his having sovereign power
over so many people, but also proof of murders by shooting and

219
 \
220 THE AVENGERS
\ .

lethal injections, sometimes because a prisoner refused to write

home describing Auschwitz as a life of bliss.

Survivors testified that they had seen Mengele snatch babies

from their mothers’arms and throw them into the flames, and
stab a child of fourteen to death. From each convoy of prisoners
he used to select between ioo and 150 strong, healthy people who
were then shot and their bodies sent to the Bacteriological Insti-
tute, to be cut up and used for the culture of bacteria. Horse
carcasses were usually provided for this purpose, but Josef
Mengele was fond of horses.
The men and women he deemed fit for hard labor were not
necessarily safe. They had only been given a respite, and if they
showed signs of exhaustion or their “output” dropped they were
sent to the gas chambers.
There were other “selectors” at Auschwitz, but none more
cruel or sadistic. Mengele took several pints of blood from
healthy young women, and when they were too weak to stand he
had them thrown alive into the incinerator.
Nothing pleased him more than the death throes of people
burnt by acids, cut up alive, licked by the flames the death —
twitches of this human debris made him laugh out loud.
Like all the SS doctors, Mengele carried out “experiments,”
specializing in hunchbacks, cripples, and other deformed people.
He finally sent their skeletons to the Anthropological Museum in
Berlin, as proof of the “physical degeneracy of the Unter-
menschen .”
He was obsessed by one particular problem involving twins.
He wanted to discover the secret of enabling German women to
produce fine Aryan twins, handsome, blue-eyed, and fair. So
hundreds of twins, on arrival at Auschwitz, were “set aside” for
his horrible experiments. Those who did not die on the operating

table lingered on painfully for weeks, under the watchful and

amused eye of Mengele.
At the end of the war, Mengele disappeared like so many other
“doctors of death” and Nazi criminals. The groups of Jewish
avengers looked for him in Poland, Germany, and Austria. But to
no avail.
 «

Josef Mengele 22 1

Mengele, however, had remained in hiding in Germany for

several years.
In 1957 Hermann Langbein, making inquiries in Frankfurt, met
a woman who had been in Auschwitz. He was telling her of the
Nazi criminals he had hunted down and of those still at liberty.
“There’s one in particular I’d like to lay my hands on,” he said.
“Dr. Josef Mengele.”
“Mengele?” she exclaimed. “Why, he studied medicine at the
university here.”
Langbein hurried off to the Faculty of Medicine. A few hours
later he had a dusty file in front of him, from which he
learned that Josef Mengele was born at Gunzburg on March 16
19 1, and was one of the three sons of Karl Mengele, the owner
1

of a large factory that made agricultural machinery. Langbein

went at once to Gunzburg, only to find that Josef Mengele had
left the town some years previously.
Mengele had in fact returned to his hometown after the war.
He could hardly have found whole
a safer refuge. Practically the
population of Gunzburg was dependent on Karl Mengele and
Sons’ factory for a living, and with the conditions existing in
Germany immediate postwar years no one was likely to
in the
denounce “the boss’s son” to the occupying forces.
Langbein, who had thought for awhile that luck was with him,
now saw all hope again vanishing for finding the “Angel of
—
Death” the nickname given to Mengele. But then: “I had
learned that Josef Mengele had leftGunzburg after living there for
Langbein
several years,” said, “but I knew no more than that. But
while looking through a local paper one day
caught sight of an
I

announcement that a certain Josef Mengele had obtained a di-

vorce from his wife, Irene Maria Sconwein, whose address was
given as Friburg-en-Brisgau. I went to see the judicial authorities
of that town, and in the file shown to me I found a power of
attorney for a local solicitor signed by Josef Mengele and legal-
ized in Buenos Aires. I had proof at last that the Auschwitz
inquisitor had taken refuge in Argentina.”
Mengele had in fact gone on living undisturbed at Gunzburg
until 1951 (the year, as mentioned, that the press in Germany and
elsewhere showed a renewed interest in the Nazi criminals).
222 THE AVENGERS

Mengele’s name appeared in the papers on a number of occasions.

Even with the tacit protection of the inhabitants of Gunzburg, he
no longer felt safe in Germany. It was time to flee the country.
He was put on the escape route of the underground organiza-
tions, the Lock Gates and the Spider, and traveled through Aus-
tria to Italy to Spain. After a short stay in that country, he went
to Argentina.
Mengele was in a privileged position compared with most of
—
the other Nazi fugitives thanks to the family business, he was
never short of money. He settled in Buenos Aires under the name
Dr. Helmut Gregori, only the first of a long list of false names. In
1964 the Interpol office in Rio de Janeiro issued the names
by which Mengele had been known over the years: Helmut
Gregori, Fausto Rindon, Jose Aspiazu, S. Alvez, Edler Friedrich
von Breitenbach, Walter Hasek, Lars Ballstrom, Heinz Stobert,
Franz Fischer, and Karl Geuske.
1954 Mengele was living at 1875
In Sarmiento in the
suburb of Olivos, Buenos Aires. Then he moved to a fine house at
970 Virrey Ortiz, Vicente Lopez, where he practised medicine
and was known by his real name. At that time, his brother Alois
was transferring funds to him through a branch of the family
business which had been up after the war. Josef Mengele
set
made several business trips to Paraguay on behalf of this branch
and sold agricultural machinery to German colonists in the re-
gion of Hohenau.
Hermann Langbein had gathered all this information. His file
on Mengele also contained the testimonies concerning the atroci-
ties he had committed, detailed accusations of his crimes, infor-
mation on his years at Gunzburg and his escape to Argentina.
Langbein took the file. to a high official of the Ministry of Justice
in Bonn on September 17, 1958. The official looked through the
file and then said with some embarrassment, “This affair is not

our concern. It is a matter for the Lander.”

Langbein was not put off. “The question of whose jurisdiction
itcomes under has nothing to do with me. I’m leaving this file
with you, the file on one of the major Nazi war criminals. Do
your duty. You are now the person responsible for seeing that
justice is done.”
 «
Josef Me?igele 22 3

A warrant for the arrest of Josef Mengele was issued by the

judicial authorities of Friburg-en-Brisgau on June 5, 1959. Soon
afterwards, a request for his extradition was sent to Buenos Aires.
But, as in other cases, the Argentine authorities ignored the re-
quest. However, the West German governmerft continued to
press the matter, and in about a year the police finally called at
970 Virrey Ortiz. As might have been expected, Mengele was no
longer living there.
Since the latter part of 1958, he had made more business
several
trips to German colonies in Paraguay. On his return from one of
these trips he had been told by highly placed friends that he was a
wanted man in Germany and that there was a possibility of his
being deported. So he decided to settle in Paraguay. He lived for
a time at the Astra boarding-house in Asuncion, and soon applied
for naturalization papers. Five years’ residence in the country was
necessary before naturalization could be granted, but this was not
an obstacle for Mengele. He had no difficulty, with the solid
backing he enjoyed from the German colony, in finding two
guarantors —Werner Jung and Alexander von Eckstein to de- —
clare on oath before a tribunal that Josef Mengele had been
living in Paraguay since 1954. And on October 30, 1959, Mengele
became a citizen of that country.
The following extracts from official documents in the archives
of the Republic of Paraguay throw some light on the ins and outs
of this naturalization.

General Register of Tourists

Letter M, page 102, entry number 3098
Josef Mengele, holder of German passport No. 3,415,574.
Arrived October 2, 1958, coming from Buenos Aires. Visa
granted: tourist, valid 90 days, expiring January 1, 1959. Address
given for length of stay: Colonial Hotel, Asuncion.

Aliens’ Register, Police Department

Identification section
Application for naturalization: Mengele, Josef, son of
Karl Mengele and Walli Hupfauer. Born March 16, 1911, at

Gunzburg (Bavaria), Germany. Divorced from first wife, Irene

22 4
\
THE AVENGERS

Maria Sconwein, and "married to Martha Maria Weil (resident in

Buenos Aires). States he was captain in Medical Services. De-
clares himself Roman Catholic. Profession, trader. States that he
formerly resided in Germany and is now living in Asuncion. Pre-
vious residence in Paraguayan territory was the Hohenau colony.
Present home Fernando de la Mora. Occupa-
address: suburb of
tion: nil. Previous address: Virrey Ortiz, 970, Vicente Lopez.

From Identification Card: Jose Mengele . . . married . . . trader

. . . date of entry: May 1959. Height, 5 feet 10 inches. Straight
forehead, light brown eyes, straight nose, medium mouth, promi-
nent chin, medium ears, distinct lobes. Finger print identification
card: V. 1344 V. 4444.

From Record Card of the Naturalization Section

Entry: October 23, 1959. Recorded in the Aliens’ Register at
No. 946, series B. Argentine identification card No. 3,940,484
issued in Buenos Aires on October 27, 1956. Application for
naturalization granted October 30, 1959. At his request No.
28,480, identification card No. 293,348 was sent to him, also his
work permit.

Written on the above card is: November 18, 1959. Card com-
municated to Buenos Aires and to Paris.
Another note written on the card is: November 13, 1961. Have
been informed by note No. 10 from Ministry of the Interior, ref.
5,414/8,425, that the German Embassy has requested to be al-

lowed to examine the file for a few hours.

Written on the file is: January 7, 1964. Informed by radio
telegram from Brasilia, Brazil, ref. No. 6190, that Interpol re-
quests the dispatch of all information concerning Mengele that
might lead to his discovery.

Mengele learned through corrupt police officer in 1959 that

a
his record card had been sent to Paris and Buenos Aires. It there-
fore seemed possible that Paraguay might hand him over to the
people who were on his track. Afraid, he crossed the frontier into
Argentina again and went to stay at a hotel at Bariloche.
During this period the last known crime Mengele had a hand
in occurred.
Josef Mengele 225

The owner was an ex-Nazi and his establishment

of the hotel
served as a meeting place for the Germans of the region. Mengele
had arrived at the hotel with two bodyguards. A week or two
later, a middle-aged blonde came to stay at the hotel. She signed

in as Nora Aldot, place of birth Frankfurt, age" forty-nine. She

spoke perfect German and easily became acquainted with Men-
gele and other guests. One morning she went off with two of the
guests for a day of what is there called “andinism” —
day in thea
Andes, among the peaks, pine forests, and lakes. During the day,
the three arrived at the top of a precipitous cliff which offered a
magnificent view of “the Switzerland of Latin America.” Sud-
denly, one of the men slipped behind Nora Aldot and gave her a
terrific blow on the back of her neck. Then he and his compan-

ion threw her over the precipice. No one saw them. Late in the
afternoon, one of the men burst breathlessly into a cafe on the
road to Bariloche and gasped in bad Spanish with a German
accent: “The woman who was with us has fallen over a cliff! A
horrible accident!”
A rescue team set out for the mountains. Andinists, skiers, and
local peasants joined in the search, but was not until three days
it

later, on February 15, i960, that the woman’s body was found.

Meanwhile, the man who had given the alarm and his companion
on the trip had both disappeared from the region.
No one at Bariloche suspected that Joseph Mengele had com-
mitted another crime. But no one knew that Nora Aldot’s real
name was Nourit Eldad and that she held an Israeli passport, No.
160,697. She had indeed been born in Frankfurt, but had left

Germany before the war. In 1935 her mother and sisters had emi-
grated to Argentina, but she had gone to Palestine and joined a
kibbutz. After an unfortunate marriage, she settled in Tel Aviv
and ran a kindergarten. She married a second time, but that was
no more successful than the first. “She was a wonderful woman,”
said a relative of her former husband. “We were furious with her
husband, who was the cause of the divorce, and we stopped
seeing him. But Nora remained friends with us. She was very
beautiful and very good.”
When West German government signed an agreement
the to
pay reparations to Israel, Nora went to Cologne as secretary to
226 THE AVENGERS
V 1

the Israeli purchasing mission. After a time, she left Germany to

visit her family in Argentina, so she said.

It wasvprobably true, for her sisters were still living there. But
the authorities of that country gave another reason for her
voyage. In the report made public a year after her death, Nora
Aldot was said to be a member of the Israeli Secret Service and to
have arrived at Bariloche with a large group of Israelis who went
to stay at a different hotel from her. some
This version is to
extent borne out by a letter that an old friend of Nora’s wrote
home: “Nora has gone with a large group of Israelis to spend
some time in the mountains around Bariloche.”
Who were these Israelis?
When Prime Minister Ben-Gurion had given the green light
for Operation Eichmann, he had also set Operation Mengele in
motion. While one group of Israeli agents went after Eichmann,
another began looking for the “Angel of Death.” Was Nora
Aldot a member of the latter group? In any case, by chance or
design, she stayed at the same hotel as Mengele. Perhaps she asked
too many questions or said too much. The fact remains that on
February 12, i960, she left for a day’s excursion with two Ger-
mans and met her death, and the two men then disappeared.
Three months after what one can only call Nora Aldot’s mur-
der, Eichmann was captured. From then on, Mengele was con-
stantly on the move, fleeing fear as Cain fled remorse. He realized
that the Israeli avengers were after him as well as the German
police authorities. Apparently he thought that he would be safer
in Europe, for in June 1961 he reserved a seat on an Aerolineas
Argentines plane, with a transfer to Swissair. He was probably
thinking of going to Switzerland and then to the Middle East.
However, at the last moment he changed his mind; Europe was
not a safe refuge either.
Simon Wisenthal has a story that Mengele did in fact go to
Europe at that time, traveling via Italy to Egypt, from which
country he was expelled. He then sailed on a yacht to the small
Greek island of Kythnos, from there went to Barcelona, and
finally returned to South America. But this does not stand up to
examination. As shown there is evidence, that on November 13,
1961, the West German Ambassador to Paraguay requested the
 *
Josef Mengele 22 7

police department to allow him on Mengele.

to examine the file

At that period, the Ambassador, Dr. Briest whom I met a few —

—
years later in Montevideo was trying by every means to obtain
the extradition of the Nazi criminal. The Paraguayan authorities’
—
answer was clear either the Ambassador ceased his demands
over Mengele (whom they maintained was not in Paraguay any-
way) or he would be declared persona non grata.
Yet during all that time Mengele was living on a farm in
Paraguay under the name of Franz Fischer. Then he went to
Brazil. In 1962 “Franz Fischer” was in Sao Paulo on at least two
occasions. He worked for a time at a hospital in the state of Santa
Catarina. Warned that Israeli agents were on his track, he fled
again — this time to Uraguay.
Mengele returned to Paraguay in 1963 for a comparatively
long stay. He felt safe there, for he had acquired the protection
of a powerful political figure, who was then Chief of Investiga-
tions.

In March 1964, in Brussels, Hubert Halin received a long,

secret report on Mengele:
“In my lastinformed you of the interview that our
report I

man had with the chief of police at Asuncion, and which led us
to believe that Mengele had left Paraguay. However, information
that has now come our way causes us to doubt this.
“The chief of police alleged that Mengele had been living at
Lambare, a suburb of Asuncion, but had disappeared without
trace a long time ago.
“This does not with the information we received just re-
fit

cently. According to an Argentine jurist who has spent many

months in Paraguay, Mengele was at Lambare for only a short
time. This jurist, who is very well informed, learned that Mengele
is very likely in the north of Paraguay, in a region where there is a

secret landing ground used by planes that fly contraband to Sao

Paulo. The chief beneficiary of this smuggling is said to be Colo-
nel Arganas, who is principal military secretary to the President
of Paraguay, General Stroessner. Mengele gives Arganas large
sums of money, and in return the latter protects him and has even
given him a permanent bodyguard.
228 THE AVENGERS

“Moreover, Mengele apparently had the protection of the

former Chief of Investigations in Paraguay, who was replaced by
a certain-Planas. My informant was unable to say whether Planas
gives the same protection to Mengele as his predecessor in office
did.
“It is highly probable that President Stroessner has been in-
formed of Mengele’s presence in Paraguay, but for political rea-
—
sons cannot risk deporting Mengele even if it were possible for
—
him to do so or bring him before a tribunal.
“This is how I see the way the land lies: Stroessner is well
aware that hispower depends on five or six army leaders, among
whom are Colonel Gonzales, commanding the cavalry; Major
Peritier; and Colonel Arganas himself. To ensure that these gentle-
men continue to support the regime, the President has given them
a share in all the big rackets and left them free to make what they

can out of the smuggling and other fraudulent activities, which

taxes and customs dues have made highly profitable.
“It is quite likely that Mengele was allowed to settle in Para-
guay without the President being consulted. Afterwards, the
President was either faced with the fait accompli or he Was given
to understand that the presence of Mengele was the concern of
Colonel Arganas and that he should keep out of it.
“If Mengele were to be deported to Germany and put on trial
there would very likely be international repercussions and the
scandals of the Paraguayan regime might be brought into the
open. The Paraguayan Government seems determined to prevent
such an eventuality. That is why all the demands for extradition
made by Bonn have come to nothing. This situation is very apt to
make Mengele believe that Paraguay is the best refuge possible,
and he is not likely to leave the country.
“As I said above, Colonel Arganas engaged in the smuggling
is

business. One of his men, perhaps the most important of them,

works at Sao Paulo. The planes used for this racket are continu-
ally landing at secret airstrips. The sale of the contraband is en-
tirely in the hands of Jewish merchants. Their activities are con-
demned by community in Sao Paulo, which has even
the Jewish
forbidden the synagogue to some of them. The most important
of these merchants is a certain F.W. He has control of the con-
 «
Josef Mengele 229

traband sent from Paraguay to Sao Paulo. He could become the

key man of our operation. Through his contacts in the country,
we might obtain more information about Mengele.
“In any case, even if our efforts succeed and we obtain precise
details about the place where Mengele is hiding, it would be
extremely difficult to mount an operation of the commando kind.
Mengele is strongly guarded by hired killers who are called
handy are they with a knife,
cuchilleros (knifers) in Paraguay, so
and who, moreover, are provided by the regime with modern
automatic weapons, machine pistols, and the like. These men
know the country perfectly. It could be said that the regime
leans on such men and even that the President and the army
leaders choose their bodyguards from among them. They are all
murderers, and often kill one another in settling their little ac-
counts.
“Always at your service, I remain. . .
.”

At the time Hubert Halin received well-known

this report, a
Brazilian journalist, Nikon Ribeiro, arrived in Asuncion. He had
gone there to try to find out whether or not Mengele was in
Paraguay.
Ribeiro spent a whole month making inquiries, sounding out
police informers and other dubious characters, questioning local
journalists,and interviewing high officials. He came across several
interesting documents while in government offices. During a visit
to the Ministry of the Interior he saw the card on Mengele with a
photo of him attached to it. The temptation was too strong.
After making sure no one was looking, Ribeiro tore off the pho-
tograph and put it in his pocket. A few weeks later it was repro-
duced in many of the world’s leading newspapers. This photo-
graph is the best and most recent one of the former head doctor
at Auschwitz.

However, Ribeiro’s inquiries almost ended tragically for him,

as he told me one rainy September evening, in the editorial room

of the Jornal do Brasil.

“I’d been working on the Mengele story for several weeks
when I began to receive some anonymous telephone calls at my
hotel. I was told to mind my own business or else. While I was—
230 THE AVENGERS

out, my hotel room and my luggage were searched. At first, I

didn’t take these threats seriously and continued with my

work. ^
“But one evening I went down to have a drink at the cafe
opposite the Guarani Hotel. There was a large mirror above the
bar, in which you could keep an eye on the entrance, and I saw
one of these big American cars drive up with a soldier at the
wheel. A man got out and came into the cafe. The next thing, I

heard shots whistling past my head. I saw that the man had a
revolver and that he was aiming at me. Fortunately, some of the
other clients had already dashed over to my attacker. ‘Are you
mad?’ they gentleman is a Brazilian journalist! Do
cried. ‘This
you want him to write in his paper that this is a country of
bandits and criminals?’ The man broke away and went back to
his car, but I could see that instead of driving away he was going
round and round the big square. There was no doubt about it, he
was after me. And it was equally certain that he was a friend of
Mengele. I took advantage of the crowd coming out of a cinema
to slip away to my hotel. That same evening I packed my bags,
and the next day I was back in Rio.”
Perhaps that was all the “friends of Mengele” wanted —to make
the too-inquisitive journalist retreat.

The most daring attempt to seize the “Angel of Death” — and

one that almost succeeded — took few months later, in
place a
August 1964. Mengele had gone to spend the weekend at the
Tirol Hotel, near Hohenau. The hotel was owned by a German,
and the region was one of the safest for ex-Nazis. Between mid-
night and one o’clock a group of armed men forced their way
into the hotel and dashed up to room 26, which was Mengele’s.
They found it empty. Mengele had been warned twenty min-
utes earlier, had hurriedly pulled on a jacket and trousers over his
pyjamas and vanished.
A few days later the Brazilian police found the body of a
young man near the village of Tres Coroas, close to the frontier.
He had been shot in the head. The Interpol officer in charge of
the case concluded that the young man had been one of the
group which had tried to seize Mengele at the Tirol Hotel, and
Josef Me?igele «
23 1

that he was shot during a gun battle that night with the Nazi
criminal’s bodyguard.
Who were these attackers? My information is that they were
not Israeli agents. According to certain sources they were Jewish
survivors of the extermination camps or sons of Jews who died
in such camps, who had formed a commando to go to Paraguay
and exact vengeance.
“I know about those men,” Simon Wisenthal told me in
Vienna. “They came to see me, here in my office. They were
after Mengele, and asked me for information as to where he was
hiding. There are twelve of them, all survivors from Auschwitz,
who emigrated to the United States. This ‘Committee of Twelve’
had plenty of money and planned to kidnap Mengele, to take him
to a yacht and judge him when out at sea. Six of them landed in
Paraguay, while the others waited aboard the yacht. But the at-

tempt failed, and nothing further was done.”

Although the formation of a “Committee of Twelve” is plausi-
ble, the plan Wisenthal outlined seems somewhat fantastic. I have

not been able to obtain any other information about this kid-
napping attempt that just failed, but certainly many Jews have
thought of meting out justice on Mengele themselves, by their
own means.
“You can be quite sure that if we ever succeed in laying our
hands on Mengele, there won’t be a repetition of the Eichmann
trial,” I was told by one avenger. “We’ll shoot him on the spot,

like a dog. And no more than he deserves, believe me.”

that’s
Mengele, having escaped death by barely twenty minutes, took
refuge at the hacienda of his protector, Colonel Arganas, in the
north of Paraguay. But in 1965 the colonel was killed in an air
crash, in circumstances which have never been properly ex-
plained. Mengele no longer felt safe, and he went to live at a
lonely farmhouse near the grandiose Iguassu waterfall, in an area
known as “the triangle,” one of the great refuge zones for ex-
Nazis, where the and Argentina meet those of
frontiers of Brazil
Paraguay, extending from the Matto Grosso in Brazil to Incar-
nacion in Paraguay and the “Parana Misiones” in Argentina. It is
simple to slip from one country to another, if need be. And there,
too, the Nazi organizations rule the roost.
232 THE AVENGERS

Mengele was seen in this region on several occasions in 1966,

according to trustworthy Israeli sources. It would appear that he
settled oqfarm bought by his brother Alois and that he re-
a
ceived considerable sums of money through an agent holding
power of attorney from the firm of Karl Mengele and Sons.
Hermann Langbein believes that if a secret agent could get a
seat on the board of the Gunzburg firm he would be able to dis-
cover how the amounts of money intended for Josef Mengele are
falsified in the accounts, and could probably find exactly where
he is living by tracing the transfers of the money.
Recently, several persons have reported the presence of a man
known as “Don Jose” or “the German doctor” in Iguassu, Brazil;
in Incarnacion, Paraguay; and in Eldorado, Argentina. Two or
three times a week, “Don Jose” goes to Eldorado in his fast
launch, the Viking and calls on the Cafetti firm,
,
which sells spare
parts for agricultural machinery and is associated with Alois
Mengele. One person who recently heard this story was the am-
bassador of a western country to Chile who was spending a
holiday at Iguassu. The description given to him of the mysteri-
ous “Don Jose” corresponds with that of Josef Mengele.
In 1966, too, a Brazilian photographer, Cicero Costa, after four
days and nights of keeping watch, succeeded, in taking a photo-
graph of a man with a moustache at Eldorado, a man whose sun-
tanned face markedly weary. German and Israeli experts who
is

have examined this photograph are inclined to think that it is

Mengele. And a doctor in Asuncion by the name of Otto Biss is
quite sure that the man is the SS officer with a cane under his arm
who whistled an air from Tosca while sending thousands of
human beings to their deaths.
Why is saw him at his clinic in Asuncion
Dr. Biss so certain? I

and asked him. He told me a strange, amazing story, in which not

—
only Josef Mengele figured but also the most elusive, the most
sought after, of all the Nazi war criminals, the Number One of
—
them all Martin Bormann.
24

WHERE IS MARTIN BORMANN?

“ One evening in 1999 — / don't remember the exact date'' Dr.

Biss toldme, “a woman came to my house, long after sunset. I
had never seen her before. She asked me to go with her at once to
see a man who was dangerously ill. I agreed, as any doctor would,
and got into the woman’s car. She drove some distance, out to a
suburb of Asuncion, to a house almost in darkness. went We
inside. A man who was lying on a large bed. As
looked very ill

soon as we stepped into this bedroom, another man came out of

an adjoining room, and I gathered he was a doctor. I examined
the sick man and spoke to him in German (Dr. Biss is of Austrian
origin and has studied at Central European universities), but he
wouldn’t answer in that or any other European language I know.
Ele insisted on bad Spanish. So I found it rather difficult to get
any help from him in establishing the nature of his illness. The
other doctor realized and bending over the sick man he
this, said,

‘You may speak German.’ And to my great surprise the man

then spoke in fluent German.
Then I could go on with my examination. I remember dis-

tinctly that hehad a scar on his forehead. I prescribed a treat-

ment for him, and then left the house. I’ve never seen my mys-
terious patient again.
“A few days later a friend of mine came to see me, in great
excitement. He told me met the woman who had
that he had
come for me, and that she had confided to him that the man I had
seen professionally was Martin Bormann. I got hold of some
photos of Hitler’s right-hand man at once. There was no possible
doubt. The man I had seen was older than the man in the photo-
graphs, but it was the same man. He was certainly Martin Bor-
mann.”
2 33
2 34 THE AVENGERS

Dr. Biss, not a mans to make such an assertion lightly, is tall,

thin, and bald. His eyes are calm and, patient behind his thick
glasses.
We were sitting in his study, where his European and Argen-
tine diplomas hang on the walls.
“And do you know who the other doctor was, the one attend-
ing Bormann?” I asked.
“Yes, Mengele,” replied Dr. Biss without a moment’s hesita-
tion.
How was it two Nazis came to be together? During
that the
their years of splendor the two had certainly never met Bor- —
mann was an illustrious figure of the regime and Mengele a hum-
ble instrument of Nazi plans. It appears that they met for the first
time at Hohenau in 1959. Bormann was suffering from some mys-
terious illness, and left his hideout in the Matto Grosso to cross
into Paraguay to find a doctor whom he could trust implicitly. So
it was not surprising that his friends put him touch with Men-
in
gele, himself a hunted man, in whom Bormann could have com-
plete confidence.
After being treated by Dr. Biss at Asuncion, Bormann went
back to the Matto Grosso. For over a year nothing more was
heard of him. Then, a few weeks after Eichmann’s trial opened in
1961, a postcard among the hundreds of letters sent to the “man
in the glass cage” attracted attention. It contained only three
words: “Mut, Mut. Martin” (Courage, courage. Martin).
Those who saw the card thought at once of Martin Bormann.
Handwriting experts reported that although the writing on the
card had some of the characteristics of Bormann’s, they were not
able to make a definite pronouncement on the basis of only three
words. When Eichmann was questioned on the subject, he
merely said with an afr of certainty, “I know Bormann is still
alive.”
Was he?

Bormann’s “phantom” has turned up here and there. on several

occasions between his faked death in burning Berlin and his dis-
—
appearance into the Brazilian jungle a roundabout journey from
Flensburg in Schleswig-Holstein to the SS hospital at Grosten in
 «
Where Is Martin Bormann? 2 35

Denmark, then by the Spider or Lock Gates escape routes to

Austrian farms, Italian monasteries, Spain. . . .

Since his disappearance, not a year has passed without the pop-
ular press running a story of his having been seen in the Bahamas,
South Africa, Australia, Mexico, the Tirol or Moscow. In Brazil
and Argentina alone, dozens of men have been wrongfully ar-
rested as Bormann. A Chilean friend of mine once assured me
most seriously that the ex-Reichsleiter was then living in the
south of Chile. He based his assertion on a letter signed “Martin
Bormann” which had appeared in an important Santiago news-
paper.
“I am tired of life and of being hunted. I want to retire to a
quiet spot to spend the rest of my life in peace. I have settled
down in a certain chalet on a certain mountain, and I do not wish
to be disturbed.”
It could not have been simpler.
Other newspapers vied with each other in publishing the rev-
elations of Bormann’s valet or his secretary or of a former neigh-
bor who had later met him at Istanbul or Timbuktu. Still alive,
still in good health, still easily recognizable.
It is difficult to disentangle this mass of fanciful information
and lies. One is led to think that the Nazis themselves originated
all the rumors and bits of gossip to put the hunters off Bormann’s
track.
Shortly after Eichmann’s capture in i960, the most sensational
news of all about Bormann was flying around editorial offices
Bormann was dead, killed, in very dramatic circumstances, by a

Jewish doctor living in Buenos Aires. Bormann had undergone

some plastic surgery and then journeyed to Buenos Aires to con-
sult a heart specialist. The latter recognized him, however, and
decided to avenge the Nazis’ victims. He gave Bormann a lethal
injectionwhich killed him instantly.
It was too good to be true —
and no one believed it.
A few months later, there were more sensational headlines:
“Bormann dead from natural causes at San Carlos de Bariloche.
Buried secretly in the heart of the Argentine pampas by his faith-
ful bodyguards.”
Once again, it was difficult to believe such news. Bormann was
236 THE AVENGERS

dying too often. Theft the Nazis decided to end all doubt. At
great expense they staged his death with a real corpse, real wit-
nesses, and “irrefutable” evidence. On December 7, 1962, press
agencies flashed the news all over the world that Bormann was
dead, really dead this time. There could be no possible doubt, for
the story was supported by a mass of detail:
“Martin Bormann died on February 15, 1959, in Asuncion, the
capital of Paraguay. He breathed his last in a house owned by a
Paraguayan of German origin, Bernard Jung. A local priest was
at his bedside. The cause of death was cancer of the stomach, and
a death certificate to this effect was signed by a doctor in
Asuncion, Dr. Otto Biss. The burial took place in the little ceme-
tery at Ita, near Asuncion.”
The news contained enough detail to impress the general pub-
But people closest to the Bormann case remained doubtful.
lic.

There was only one way to be sure, and that was to check di-
rectly.
Afew weeks later, some secret agents went to Ita and had the
body exhumed. They had little difficulty in establishing that it
was not the body of Martin Bormann but that of a Guarani
Indian, a poor wretch named Emilio Hermocilla. The cemetery
keeper admitted that “some Senores from Asuncion” had paid
him well to confirm and spread the news of Bormann’s burial at
Ita.

A year later, some German journalists went to the cemetery

and confirmed that the burial was a hoax. Soon after they had
published their story, the chief witness of Bormann’s “death,”
Bernard Jung, Paraguay for Spain. He has always refused to
left

make any statement on the matter. The priest who, according to

the story, attended Bormann at the end, has never been found.
As for Dr. Biss, he said to me:
“I have never declared Bormann’s death, never diagnosed
cancer and, of course, never signed his death certificate. What I

can you is that after the news got around that I had examined
tell

Bormann, I received several visits and telephone calls from people

in different parts of the world —
many of them ex-Nazis all —
wanting me to state that Martin Bormann was either dying or
Where Is Martin Bormann? «
2 37

dead. I always refused, as the man

had examined that night was
I

not suffering from cancer nor was he in any danger of dying. He

was merely suffering from gastritis and his general condition was
good. All I can say is that if he has not fallen from a tree or been
run over since then, he should be as fit as you or P.”
To end my Bormann’s frequent deaths, I
inquiries into Martin
questioned a secret agent with great experience dealing with
Nazis. “Why is so much effort made to convince us that Bor-

mann is no longer alive?” I asked.

“That’s simple enough,” he replied. “It’s because he isn’t dead.
If he were dead, there would be no need to stage so many fan-
tastic death scenes. All this furor about Martin Bormann’s ‘deaths’
just goes to prove that he’s still alive.”
“Very well. Where is he then?”
“In the Matto Grosso.”
I have flown over the Matto Grosso several times. It is a vast
swampy jungle crossed by only two roads, often made impassable
by torrential rains. Lonely farmsteads can be seen here and there
in clearings on the hillsides. An avenger who knows the region
well told me: “If an Indian is posted somewhere along the road,
he will give two days’ warning of any car on the way. Friends of
mine driving through the Matto Grosso were stopped by armed
Germans and told to go back, the excuse being that the road was
under repair.
“In that region there are no hotels, no inns, no camping sites.
You have to find someone to put you up, and he suspects and
questions you. There are a number of men living in the Matto
Grosso who have something to hide, who are wanted for com-
mon-law or war crimes. The only way to investigate the region
would be to mount large-scale action with helicopters and motor-
ized troops, and make a gigantic sweep. But secret agents alone
can’t carry out such an operation, governments ought to do it.”

So Bormann is well protected, aided by the physical features of

the Matto Grosso and by the solidarity of the outlaws who have
found refuge there. And in addition there are Nazi organizations
throughout Latin America which have powerful support and are
ready to give every help to criminals of the Reich.
238 THE AVENGERS

The legal proceedings against Walter Rauff provide a case in

point.
The wartime career of this SS officer in charge of gas vans has
been discussed previously. In 1949, after organizing the Syrian
Secret Police, Walter Rauff went to South America. He worked
Ecuador as a representative of the German firm of Bayer.
first in

In October 1958 he went to Chile as manager of a branch of the

Sara Braun Company at Magallanes, on the borders of Tierra del
Fuego. In 1959 he moved to Santiago, where he found employ-
ment with Goldmann-Jannsen, a firm of importers.
Although he was known to have perpetrated countless crimes,
Rauff returned to Germany several times, and no action was
taken against him. Not until December 5, 1962, after West Ger-
many had asked for his extradition, did the Chilean police arrest
him at Punta Arenas, down in the south.
He was held in Santiago while legal proceedings took place to
decide whether Chile should accede to West Germany’s request.
The Supreme Court rejected it, despite the efforts of one of Latin
America’s leading attorneys, Sehor Eduardo Novoa Monreal,
representing the West German government. Rauff was ^et free.
In the view of the Chilean judges, his crimes, notably the gassing
of 97,000 Jews, were of an essentially “political” nature.
On April 28, 1953, the day of Rauff’s release from prison, a
group of anti-Nazis ran the following sarcastic advertisement in
the newspaper Mer curio:
—
“For sale or hire a fleet of trucks. General carriers. Turbo-gas
system. Special design, easy to handle. All advice and instructions
on their various uses given personally. Apply to W. Julius R.
(Walter Julius Rauff), free since April 28, 1963.”
Rauff went off to the Puerto Porvenir, in Tierra del Feugo,
with his faithful Alsatian dog, Bobby, whose role, according to
statements Rauff made to the press, was to defend him if he was
attacked by Israelis.

At first reading of press reports of the proceedings, there

seemed little remarkable about them. But on a closer reading, on
hearing from several Chilean lawyers, such pointed remarks as

“How was a poor man like Rauff able to engage the best attor-
 «
Where Is Martin Bormann? 239

neys in the country to defend him? Where did the money come
from?” — I became more curious.

The day following his arrest, Rauff retained a Santiago lawyer

of German origin, Rolf Buecher. A few days later, another well-
known lawyer, Enrico Shepeler, was engaged to assist Buecher.
On December Buecher held a press conference.
10, 1962,
“What part will Sehor Shepeler take in the Rauff proceed-
ings?” asked a reporter from La Tercera.
“I can’t answer that question,” said Buecher. “The organiza-
tion will decide that, and also the attitude to be adopted by the
defense.”
The was insistent. “What do you mean? What or-
journalist
ganization are you referring to?”
“I can add nothing to what I’ve already said,” replied Buecher
with some embarrassment.
“But you admit that there is a group of people financing the
defense and giving directives?”
“Yes,” said Buecher, obviously ill at ease. “But please don’t ask
any more questions, as I can’t give you further information. The
organization does not want to be involved through any state-
ment. . .
.”

The organization probably decided that Buecher had said too

much as it was, for the following day his brief was withdrawn.
Ten days later, a typewritten letter, a kind of communique, was
sent to the Santiago newspapers:
“The German organization Das Reich which groups ,
all ex-
servicemen who fought in World War II, wishes to state that it is

paying for Rauff’s defense to protect the honor of the soldier

who fought for his Fatherland in its life-and-death struggle.”
No one in Chile Das Reich organization be-
had heard of this
fore the publication of the statement, and no one heard of it again
afterwards.
I asked Enrico Shepeler, Rauff’s defense counsel, about it. He
stated that he had never known of the existence of such an organ-
ization, that he had never met any group of Germans or any
representative of Das Reich or any other organization. It was
 ,

240 THE AVENGERS

RaufFs son who had' engaged him to defend his father. And,
Shepeler added, he had still penny of his fee.
not received a
Yet when I questioned at length some of Shepeler’s close
friends, they said: “How could he tell you such things? Shepeler
has confided to us several times, in great embarrassment — and in
strict confidence — that he had been engaged by a group of
Chilean Germans who wished to remain anonymous.”
This group of Germans thus was the organization, Das Reich.
While in Chile, I gathered some details about this clandestine
group from several people. It still exists, a select club with be-
tween fifty and eighty members, all Germans living at Osorno or
Valdivia, two towns in southern Chile. Some are Nazis who fled
from Europe after the war, others are Chilean-born Germans
who had volunteered for the German Army and who returned to
Chile at the end of hostilities. Several of the members are impor-
tant businessmen and industrialists. Some of the secret funds sent
by Bormann to South America seem to have been made available
to the organization.
Anti -Nazis in Buenos Aires and Rio de Janeiro, who were well
informed, but had never heard of Das Reich told me that they
knew about a secret society of important ex-Nazis living in Chile.
They also believed that the society had been given some of
Bormann’s loot and that it had close connections with similar
organizations in other Latin American countries.
In his book Fascistes et Nazis Aujourd'hui * Dennis Eisenberg
says on this subject:
“During the last war, Chileans of German origin were deeply
involved in Nazi activities. Some of them, like the Latin-Ameri-
can born Hermann G. Schnette, returned to Germany and joined
the Nazi Party. But there was also a movement in the opposite
direction. For instance' an important Nazi, Egbrecht von Older-
hausen (arrested by the Allies in 1945), went to Chile several
times on mysterious business.
“At the present time there exists in Chile, particularly at
Temuco and Valparaiso, a large Nazi faction which parti v fi-
nances the Fascist journal Der W
eg, published in Argentina.
“When Peron fell from power in 1955, many ex-Nazis in the
* Albin Michel, Paris, 1963.
Where Is Martin Bormann? « 241

service of the Argentinian dictator fled to Chile. Ex-Nazis in . . .

Chile have set up an organization run by an ex-SS officer, Baron

Georg Mapusch, who is assisted by Nazis who have settled in the
country. Among them is Von Affen, who in 1943 was in charge
of a radio station near Valparaiso that workejd for the Ger-
mans. . .
.”

Like a huge iceberg with only a small part visible, Das Reich is

merely the observable part of the clandestine Nazi organizations

in South America.
The aim of Das Reich and similar organizations is not to set up
a Nazi regime in Latin American countries or in Europe. They
are organizations for mutual aid and defense against the law, with
origins dating back to the Nuremberg Trials. Their members
include all the war criminals sentenced in their absence, not only
leading Nazis and those who have become powerful in their
countries of refuge, but also the little men, hotelkeepers, trades-
men, farmers, and the like. All have in common a determination
never to serve the sentences awaiting them in Europe.
Many of the organizations I have named have now disappeared
— the Lock Gates, Spider, Odessa, Stille Hilfe the Rudel Club
but others such as the Waffen SS HI AG, the Verb and Deutschen
Soldaten Die Bruderschaft, Die Kameradenschaft, and the
,

branches of HIAG in Holland, Norway, Austria, and Denmark,

still exist, sheltered by charitable organizations and other highly

respectable societies.
The Lock Gates opening ways of escape from Germany
the are
still functioning, and the routes to Egypt and South America are
still used. Coordination is well established between the various
organizations, and practically permanent contacts are maintained
with groups in Cairo and Madrid, in Argentina and Brazil.
Most of the time, however, the organizations are inactive. But
—
should an urgent case arise a war criminal on the verge of arrest
who needs an escape route, or court defense for a captured Nazi
— the organizations come to life and everyone concerned remains
at his post until the aim is achieved.
Sensational stories have appeared in the popular press about the
connections between ex-Nazis and the neo-Nazi parties. But the
242 THE AVENGERS
V

latter generally consist of youngwhose activities ap-

extremists,
pear too dangerous to the Nazi “old guard,” which prefers dis-
creet withdrawal from the public eye. There are, however, cer-
tain exceptions. For instance, the HI AG has given support to two
groups of young neo-Nazis and helped with their instruction in
the use of arms. In South Africa, ex-Nazis and fugitive war crim-
inals are in close touch with young emulators of Hitler, and have
even presented them with a U-boat which had reached Cape
Town after the end of the war. The vessel, well-maintained and in
seagoing condition, is at present moored bay of the
in a small
African coast as a precious relic of the great days of the Third
Reich.
And Tacuara ,
most powerful Fascist organization in
the
Argentina, provided Mengele with his permanent bodyguard.
While in Peru I had the opportunity to read a confidential
report from “special” sources in the office of a Western ambas-
sador. According to this report, a large German farming colony
exists around Guayaquil Bay and openly favors Nazism. They
have their own harbor and jetty, all well guarded. Approach by
land is impossible, because of the jungle. If need be, inhabitants
can easily flee to Ecuador. And, as though in defiance of the rest
of the world, they have named their little territory Mein Kampfl
Father Leopoldino de Souza, a Catholic priest well known in
Brazil, told me about a hacienda he visited near Friburgo, in the
Samson valley. He said he saw a large stock of weapons, and that
the owners of the place told him with a smile that as they were ex-
Nazis they had to be prepared for any eventuality, in particular
a left-wing revolution which could threaten the safety of them-
selves and their friends.
It is hardly surprising then, that with the aid —sporadic, but
very efficient in time of danger — of these organizations, and with
refuge available at the homes of sympathetic Germans in inac-
Nazi leaders such as Franz Stangl, Eich-
cessible regions, fugitive
mann, Bormann, and Mengele have been able to remain in hid-
—
ing for so long some even to this day.
Nevertheless, the determination of the avengers often has pre-
vailed — for example, in their pursuit of Brunner and Cukurs.
25

THE END OF CUKURS

At the time of the war between the French and the

in Algeria
Arab Nationalists, several Germans engaged in supplying arms to
the Algerian insurgents were victims of personal attacks. These
were attributed to a mysterious organization called the Red Hand
which had already acquired a certain notoriety and which seemed
determined to prevent foreign aid from reaching the FLN, the
Arab Nationalists.
On September 13, 1961, a tall, corpulent man went into a post
office in Damascus and asked the clerk at the parcels counter
whether there was anything for him, showing an identification
card in the name of Dr. Georg Fischer. The clerk handed him a
large parcel sent from Germany.
Dr. Fischer took the parcel home and started to open it. Sud-
denly there was a loud explosion. He was taken to the hospital
and although he was not killed by the bomb, he had one hand
badly damaged, several chest injuries, and lost the sight of both
eyes. Actually, he was condemned to little more than a living
death.
Foreign observers and journalists did not hesitate to attribute
the bomb Red Hand. Dr. Fischer was joint owner of
parcel to the
the Orient Trading Company in Damascus, which in fact was a
cover for the smuggling of arms to the Middle East and North
Africa.
However, if those foreign observers and journalists had been a
little more curious, they would have discovered that the real

name of gun-runner “Georg Fischer” was Alois Brunner, the man

of whom Eichmann had said some years previously: “He is one
of my best assistants.”
SS Hauptsturm-Fuehrer Brunner had been in charge of sending
2 43
2 44 THE AVENGERS

the French Jews interned at Drancy to the extermination camps

in Germany, and had also distinguished himself in the deportation
of Jews from Greece and Slovakia.
After the war he was captured by the group of avengers led by
Arthur Pier and sent to an American POW camp. But he escaped
to Syria, where he went into the gun-running business under an
assumed name. He became closely associated with Colonel
Sarradj, head of Syrian counter-espionage, and in exchange for
small services was given all the help and assistance he needed.
According to some sources, in i960 Brunner had planned to
kidnap Dr. Goldmann, the President of the Jewish World Con-
gress, as a reprisal for the capture of Eichmann, his old chief. It
seems he even sent a “Lebanese citizen” to Vienna to see what
could be done. Fortunately for Dr. Goldmann, the plan went no
further.
In 1961 Israeli agents discovered the postal address being used
by Brunner. While Eichmann was on trial a few hundred miles
south of Damascus, Brunner-Fischer received his deserts through
post office channels.
It was pointless for the avengers to ask Syria, an Arab country,
to deport Brunner. They felt obliged to choose a more expeditious
form of justice.

The Red Hand appeared not to have had anything to do with

the attempt to kill Georg Fischer, any more than it was mixed up
in the attacks on other German gun-runners such as Puchert and
Beisner, also ex-Nazis and war criminals. Their smuggling activi-
ties probably hindered certain interests, but there were others

who had far more serious accounts to settle.

Since 1959 Jewish vengeance had taken a new turn. Instead of

striking almost blindly,- the aim now was to give warning while —
still punishing war criminals whenever possible — to ex-Nazis who
might think they were and to young neo-Nazis and neo-
safe
Fascists, the fanatics of Europe and South America, who sought
to revive the doctrines and activities of Hitler and his associates.
Isser Harel had said that if he had been head of the secret
services when Hitler came topower he would have sent a com-
mando to assassinate the Fuehrer. The new form of Jewish ven-
The End of Cukurs « 2 45

geance had to be avowed and carried out in the open, so that

Nazi criminals everywhere would tremble in their hideouts and
the young would-be Nazis would know that any attempt to in-
would be crushed.
jure the Jewish people
This dual purpose was apparent in the attack on Brunner, a
Nazi criminal who had taken refuge with enemies of Israel. The
names of the avengers in his case are not known.
But in another case, an Israeli secret agent admitted his part in
the hunt for Nazi criminals, after being arrested in January
*9 6 5 *

The activities of the Israeli master spy, Elie Cohen, were

audacious enough to bring him to the gallows. He passed himself
off as anArab and penetrated the inner circle of Syrian politics,
eventually becoming so influential that he even aspired to a mini-
sterial appointment.
He was discovered and arrested in January 1965. At his tele-
vised trial, he admitted most of the charges brought against him.
He told the court that one of his tasks was to seek out and
identify the Nazi criminals living in Syria, and that with the
assistance of one of his chief informants, Madjed Cheik El Ard,
he had discovered the whereabouts of a man known as Rozli.
“Who was this Rozli?” the presiding judge asked. “Is it not a
fact that El Ard
you to Rozli after you had received a mes-
led
sage from the Israeli government asking you to send a descrip-
tion of the man?”
“Yes,” Cohen replied. “I did receive a message from Israel. It
was during the Eichmann trial. We wanted to find the men who
had collaborated with him. I knew that Rozli was a German and
that during the war he had worked in the offices where anti-
Jewish measures were organized. I spoke about him to El Ard,
who drove me in his own car to the Navak bridge and pointed
out a building where Rozli and his wife lived. I went in and
knocked at their door, and I spent about twenty minutes with
them.”
Elie Cohen would say no more. The mysterious Rozli took
good care not to put in an appearance. Cohen was sentenced to
death, and took his secret about Rozli with him to the gallows.
 :

246 THE AVENGERS

Some months later* aNazi criminal named Franz Rademacher

left his refuge in Syria where he had been living since 1953, and for
no apparent reason decided to return to Germany. The reasons he
gave for his return were not very convincing. According to his
friends, Rademacher no longer felt safe in Syria. He was arrested
in Bonn on charges of participating in the Final Solution.
In Moshe Pearlman’s book La Longue Chasse (already re-
ferred to) about Eichmann’s capture, there was a short paragraph
that escaped notice when the book was published in 1961
“Franz Rademacher, an escaped war criminal, has been in
Damascus for the past few years. He lives there under the name
Thome Rosello.”
Rozli and Rosello were the same person. Elie Cohen had gained
a final success —the man he had been after had ended up behind
prison bars, in fear of Jewish vengeance.
The Rozli case became public because Cohen’s trial was tele-
vised (the only such case given this much publicity). Through it,

the world learned that the Israelis did not hesitate to hunt out
Nazi criminals even in Arab countries.
—
And the hunt goes on in Baghdad, in North Africa, above all
in Cairo. However, these affairs must remain secret.
Sometimes a hunt for a Nazi criminal is called off to preserve
relations between Israel and the country in which the criminal is
hiding. This occurred, for instance, in Ghana, when an Israeli
commando which had discovered the whereabouts of the notori-
ous Dr. Horst Schumann was ordered to take no further ac-
tion.
On other occasions the department of the Israeli secret services

especially concerned with the hunt for Nazi criminals has fol-
lowed a different line and sent the information about the hunted
man to the special services of the country where he was living.
Aside from routine diplomacy, this approach also places the gov-
—
ernment concerned in a corner it either has to take some action
or must clearly demonstrate that it has no intention of cooperat-
ing.
Relations between Israel and West Germany have been very
fruitful in this respect. “There are no secrets between my office
and Israel,” Dr. Fritz Bauer, the Director of Public Prosecutions
The End of Cnkurs 2 47

for theLand of Hesse, told me in Frankfurt. This collaboration is

by no means one-way. On several occasions Israel has sent infor-
mation about Nazi criminals living under assumed names in West
Germany to the relevant German authorities. A similar close col-
laboration has been established with Poland, Czechoslovakia, and
Hungary. In East European countries, it must be admitted, Nazi
criminals are likely to receive much stiffer sentences than in West
Germany, where they are too often treated with great indul-
gence.
Yet direct action is still preferred in cases involving war crimi-
nals of major importance —
as in the case of Herbert Cukurs in
February 1965.

In 1947 a tall, burly man wearing thick glasses had landed in

Rio de Janeiro, holding a passport in the name of Herbert
Cukurs, farmer. had come from Berlin, via Marseilles. A
He
young Jewish woman, Miryam Keitzner, was with him, and be-
cause of her, Cukurs was soon on good terms with a number of
Brazilian Jews. He told all and sundry: “The Nazis discovered
her in Lithuania. She was marked for certain death. I saved her at
the risk of my Such bravery was bound to make a most
life.”

favorable impression on Jews in Brazil. They showed great re-

spect for the brave Gentile who had saved a Jewish woman from
the gas chambers.
But one evening, in high and drunken spirits, the man spoke of
—
Jews in a very different manner he told horrible tales of mas-
sacres, of Jews burned alive, drowned, hunted down like wild
animals and shot. His listeners wondered who he really was he —
appeared to have inside knowledge of the horrible deeds com-
mitted by the Nazis. The Brazilian Jews provoked inquiries and
found out he was actually Herbert Cukurs, born in Lithuania on
March 17, 1900. He joined the local pro-Nazi movement in the
i93o’s, was made an officer, and became the chief assistant to the
Fuehrer of the region. When war broke out, Cukurs quickly
became known for his sadistic and vicious oppression.
On July 4, 1941, he had three hundred Jews locked in a syna-
gogue in Riga, and then set fire to it. That same summer, by his
order, twelve hundred Jews were drowned in Kuldiga Lake. In
248 THE AVENGERS

November he directed operations against the Riga ghetto, and

thirty thousand Jews were taken out to the forest by SS and
massacred.
Cukurs was in Berlin at the end of the war. He had his profes-
sion altered on his passport from engineer to farmer, but as this
alone would hardly save him from certain inquisitive people, he
rescued a Jewish woman and took her with him to Brazil.
When the Jews of Rio found out about him, Cukurs merely
moved to another district of the city, abandoning Miryam Keitz-
—
ner in the process she was of no further use to him. Later, he
got married and had several children.
By the late 1950’s, Cukurs had become the respectable manag-
ing-director of a firm of air taxis. But he was again discovered,
and this time Jewish students smashed up the offices of his firm.
Cukurs moved to Sao Paulo with his wife and three sons. He
could see his situation deteriorating. In June i960, shortly after
hearing of the dramatic capture of Eichmann, Cukurs went to the
police to ask for protection, which was given him. This brought
indignant protests from Lithuanians who had survived the con-
—
centration camps their organization discovered Cukurs’ new
address, and he felt more vulnerable than ever. He told his family
that he feared avengers would get on his track and assassinate
him. He even drew up a list of people whom he considered his
most dangerous enemies, consisting of most of the Jews holding
—
eminent positions in Brazil Dr. Aharon Steinbruck, senator; Dr.
Alfredo Gartenberg; Dr. Marcus Constantino; Dr. Israel Skolni-
kov; Klinger; Pairitzki. None however, played any part in the
subsequent events involving Cukurs.
Toward the end of 1964, Cukurs added another name to his
list, Anton Kunzle.

Kunzle first appeared in Cukurs’ life in OctoberSao1964, at

Paulo. He was a thick-set man, bald, with plump features and a
small, well-groomed moustache. And he always wore dark
glasses. He introduced himself to Cukurs as a businessman with
considerable funds. After gaining his confidence, he told him
under a pledge of secrecy that Kunzle was not his real name and
that he was an ex-Nazi sought by Israeli commandos and the
 «
The End of Cuknrs 2 49

German police. He put forward a business proposition — that he

and Cukurs and other German friends should start an interna-
tional tourist agency and open offices in Montevideo, Buenos
Aires, and Santiago, Chile. “We old hands must stick together,”
he said.

Cukurs was and the two were soon on friendly

interested,
terms. They discussed the idea while spending hours together on
the beach, sunbathing, swimming. Kunzle did not fail to impress
upon his prospective partner the big profits they could make.
Cukurs nevertheless remained suspicious. Kunzle’s story about
himself was not at all clear. But Cukurs could hardly know his
new friend who held an Austrian passport (No. 920,195) was a
Jew and in contact with an organization hunting Nazi criminals.
Despite the bait of big profits, Cukurs added Kunzle’s name to his
list of possible assassins.
In January Kunzle told Cukurs that he had to go to
1965,
Rotterdam for a short time, and suggested that on his return to
South America they meet in Montevideo, where the other pros-
pective partners would be, and all sign the agreement setting up
the new company.
So Kunzle left for Europe leaving Cukurs torn between the
fear of missing out on a profitable business and that of falling into
a clever trap.

On February 15 he went to the police station in Sao Paulo and

asked to see a certain officer, Alcido Cintra Bueno Filho.
“I’m in business and I’ve been under police protection here for
some years, as I fear for my life,” Cukurs said to the officer.
“Well, a very important European businessman has asked me to
go and see him in Montevideo. Do you think it’s all right for me
to go to Uruguay? Would I be running into danger there? What
do you advise?”
“Don’t go,” the officer replied. “You’re safe here, because we
protect you. But remember that if you leave Brazil you lose this
protection, this security. Don’t think that your enemies have for-
gotten you. . .
.”

Cukurs thought this over for a minute or two, then stood up to

go and said: “I’ve always been courageous, I’m not afraid. Be-
sides, I always carry a revolver, and I’m still a very good shot.”
250 THE AVENGERS

Despite the warning from the police officer (who told journal-
ists of this conversation a few weeks later), Cukurs decided to go
to Montevideo. On
February 19 he received a cable: “Expecting
see you Montevideo Wednesday Anton.”
On the 23rd Cukurs boarded an Air-France plane for Monte-
video. He had his ticket in one pocket and his .22 revolver in
another — just in case.

All was ready for Cukurs in Montevideo. Kunzle was waiting

for the “Riga murderer” with another Jew, Oswald Taussig, who
also held an Austrian passport (No. 101,261/61). From informa-
tion I gathered later in Montevideo, it seems the two men were in
contact with the Israeli Secret Service, and that they had care-
fully worked out their plan of vengeance over many months.
They had chosen Montevideo as the place to kill Cukurs be-
cause he was under police protection in Brazil, and his murder
there could have resulted in ex-Nazis who
had settled in the
country taking reprisals against the Jews. But in Montevideo, the
capital of Uruguay, the most liberal democracy in South Amer-
ica, the war criminal would find no one to stand up for him.

Taussig had arrived in Montevideo on February 1 1 and gone to

stay at the Nogaro Hotel, where he was given room 302. A week
later he hired a green Volkswagen from the Sudamcar agency.
He also rented a small villa near the sea, the “Casa Cubertini.”
Then he bought a large trunk, six feet long, eighteen inches wide,
and twenty inches high, which he sent to the villa.

The other members of the commando arrived in Montevideo a

few days after There were five of them, including
Taussig.
Kunzle, who arrived on February 15, and went to the Victoria
Hotel, where he was given room 2112. He, too, hired a car from
the Sudamcar agency; a black Volkswagen.
The plotters had decided to kill Cukurs, not to kidnap him and
take him to Israel.
“For the avengers, there was no question of a repetition of the
Eichmann business,” I was told in Montevideo by a person who
had been in close touch with them, although he took no part in
the operation.
The End of Cnkurs « 25 r

By February 21, the trap was

Kunzle and Taussig paid
set.

several visits to the rented villa while waiting for Cukurs to ar-
rive. He reached Montevideo on the morning of the 23rd and

went to the Victoria Hotel, where Kunzle was staying, and was
given Room 1719. The two met around midday,, Kunzle told his
friend that he would take him to see the other partners, who had
proposed as the meeting spot a quiet villa close to the beach.
Cukurs made no objection, and the two went off in Kunzle’s
black Volkswagen.
The hot midday sun was melting the asphalt of the deserted
streets. The green Volkswagen had been standing some sixty

yards from the Casa Cubertini since the middle of the morning.
Inside the villa, Taussig and the other three men were keeping a
lookout for Kunzle to arrive with Cukurs.
The two stepped inside the front door, and at once the waiting
four hurled themselves at the Lithuanian giant, pointing their
revolvers at him. Cukurs drew his weapon and fired. In the gen-
eral scuffle, Kunzle got knocked on the head and another man
was slightly wounded in the hand. But Cukurs received a bullet in
the heart and fell dead.
His body was placed in the trunk together with his personal
papers. The trunk was intended to make it seem that the avengers
were prevented from taking the body with them by some mis-
hap. A typewritten note left in the trunk with the body stated
the crimes against the Jews committed by the “Riga murderer”
and the death sentence passed on him, duly carried out. Then the
group of avengers left the villa.
According to a neighbor, Senor Raffo, the five went off about
an hour after the arrival of Kunzle and Cukurs. Three men got
into the green car and the other two into the black one.
Some accounts say that one of the avengers, if not more, left

Uruguay on the Israeli cargo vessel Har-Rimon, which was

moored off Montevideo at the time.
A few days later the police received an anonymous letter tell-
ing them of the killing, but they paid no attention to it. Other
vaguely worded letters were sent to press agencies in Bonn and
Frankfurt, saying that a Nazi criminal had been executed in
252 THE AVENGERS

Uruguay. None was taken seriously. Finally, one of the avengers

telephoned the Associated Press in Frarjkfurt and read the follow-
ing statement in bad German:
“Considering the gravity of the crimes of which Fferbert
Cukurs was accused, notably his personal responsibility in the
murder of thirty thousand men, women, and children, and con-
sidering the terrible cruelty shown by Herbert Cukurs in carry-
ing out his crimes, we condemned the said Cukurs to death. He
was executed on February 23, 1965, by ‘those who will never
forget.’ The body is at the villa Casa Cubertini, Calle Colombia,
Montevideo, Uruguay.”
The Associated Press took notice this time, and alerted its

office in Montevideo, which informed the police. Eleven days

after the execution, the body was discovered in the trunk at the
villa. The chief of police in Montevideo, Colonel Ventura Rodri-

guez, personally took charge of investigations. But inquiries made

in Sao Paulo as well as in Montevideo led nowhere. The avengers
were never traced.
Anton Kunzle, playing his part as a “friend” of Cukurs to the
end, in order to cover up his own tracks, sent a letter from
Santiago, Chile, before returning to Europe, to the man who
had expected to become his partner.
The letter, dated February 26, read as follows:

“My dear Herbert,

“With God’s help and that of some of our compatriots I have
safely reached Chile. Pm now resting after the tiring journey,
and I’m sure that you, too, will very soon be back home. Mean-
while, I’ve discovered that we were followed by two people, a

man and a woman. We must be very careful and take every

precaution. As I’ve always said, you are running a great risk in
working and traveling under your own name. It could be dis-

astrous for us, and also lead to my real identity being discov-
ered.
“So I Uruguay have taught you
hope that the complications in
a lesson for the future, and that you’ll be more prudent now. If
you notice anything suspicious in or around your house, remem-
—
ber the advice I gave you go and hide among Von Leers’s
The End of Cnkurs «
253

men for a year or two, until the question of an amnesty is set-

tled.

“When you get this letter, reply to the address you know of in
Santiago, Chile.
“Yours,
“Anton K.”

The letter is the last entry in the file on Cukurs. There is also a
photograph of Anton Kunzle in the file, taken at Sao Paulo by
the mistrustful Cukurs. But Kunzle —
I do not know his real name

— seems to have vanished. Should he ever show up again, he

probably will have changed his name and appearance.
26

VENGEANCE, A WARNING

There have been many instances of savage hatred and stern ven-
dettas in the long history of mankind. But the vengeance re-
counted in these pages has endured for more than twenty years.
It is unique in its origin, motives, and manifestations, and results

from the great gulf dividing the crimes from their punishment.
Executing a deliberate plan to destroy a whole race was un-
known in modern times. Never had there been such horrible
methods, such sadistic perversions allied to industrial processes.
What punishment can be meted out to a man responsible for
the death of thousands?
In 1961, in West Germany, the trial took place of the SS officer
Karl Chmielewski, who from 1940 to 1942 was commandant of
Gusen concentration camp, an overflow from Mauthausen. Dur-
ing the trial it was established that thousands of prisoners were
put to death by being immersed in icy water or strung up by the
feet with their hands tied behind their backs, their heads dangling
in a barrel of water. It takes courage even to think of the agony
of those men, women, and children. Death came slowly, for
while the victim had the strength, he struggled to keep his
still

head above the water by drawing himself up by the legs. It is

obvious that the SS hqd thought up this method of killing for the
sheer pleasure of watching the spectacle.
Landru and Bluebeard were humane compared with these in-
genious torturers. What other regime than the Nazis could have
provided such scope for the talents of the lowest and vilest men
in the history of the human race?
There no precedent in history for places like Gusen and
is

Auschwitz. In numbers and horrors the crimes committed ex-

254
Vengeance ,
A Warning , 255

ceeded all the rules and customs of the civilized world. It is not
surprising that the avengers too sometimes transgressed.
The Jewish people suffered more than any other from Nazism.
Yet there was not a Jew among the judges at Nuremberg. There
was no State of Israel in 1945. It is therefore understandable that
the survivors of the extermination camps, the relatives of those
who had been massacred, and the Jewish soldiers who had fought
side by side with Allied troops should have felt deeply frustrated.
One can understand, too, that in facing what they considered a
denial of justice, some resolved to take matters into their own
hands — to exercise a right which had been refused them, the right
to punish the oppressors of their race.

When Israelis kidnapped Eichmann some jurists and

in i960,
intellectuals loudly declared it an outrageous act, some referred
to it as “an act of piracy.” According to them, West Germany or
Austria ought to have insisted that the Argentinian authorities
hand Eichmann over to them, for nothing could justify such
disregard for international law. But what kind of law sanctions
giving refuge and protection to criminals like Eichmann and
Mengele?
Elad the Israelis who captured Eichmann kept within the
“law,”Eichmann would be alive and free today, as are Martin
Bormann, Walter Rauff, Josef Mengele, Leon Degrelle, Ver-
belen, and many others.
Neither the Jews’ kidnapping of Eichmann nor the Yugoslavs’
execution of Ante Pavelic is surprising. It is surprising that noth-
ing has yet been done to bring to justice those really responsible
for the massacre at Oradour-sur-Glane.
When law and justice do not go hand in hand, a choice must be
made, and the avengers, knowing the risks, chose justice.

In the immediate postwar years, Jewish vengeance was almost

instinctive. The sole idea was to hit back, to punish the war
criminals, the whole German nation too, if only symbolically.
The confusion and anarchy existing in Europe after five years of
war was conducive to that kind of vengeance. It was carried out
256 THE AVENGERS

by small groups of men determined to take action, who acted

practically without any assistance, often against the wishes of
Jewish leaders.
With Operation Eichmann, the avengers’ aim became to give
punishment the character of a warning.
The most determined Nazi hunters are aware that whatever
they do, they cannot bring the victims back to life. They are
aware, too, that a few successful cases cannot disguise the fact
that it is practically impossible to find and punish all the tor-
turers, all the murderers, all the oppressors, great and small. For
one Eichmann sentenced to death, one Cukurs executed, how
many have eluded vengeance?
But these instances do warn all who up to now have succeeded
in slipping through the net. I have mentioned one farm in Chile
—
impudently named Mein Kampf I know, too, of dozens of iso-
lated farms in the pampas of Argentina and in the Matto Grosso
where men have been living in constant fear for almost a quarter
of a century. These men remain hidden, never go out alone, lock
and bolt their doors every evening, have their boundaries pa-
trolled, fear any new face. Their anguish is the beginning of
punishment. Each is haunted by the thought that avengers might
suddenly appear, seize him, take him to some lonely spot, and
there read out his sentence and shoot him.
This is the reason for making the avengers’ deeds public in
recent years. Every oppressor still at large must realize that his
turn could come at any moment. And this may be a more perfect
vengeance than the law of retaliation.
A young Israeli whose parents were murdered in Europe once
said to me: “It’s quite simple —
all the war criminals who are still

alive and free must be made to realize that their execution is only
postponed.” ;

The warning is also intended for those who might be tempted

to revive Nazism.
Israel and all Jewish people know better than others what Hitler
and Nazism meant. Should we forget the crimes that were com-
mitted, forgive the murderers and oppressors? Some who have
never experienced the Nazi hell speak of “forgiving and forget-
ting.” Others say, “Let us forgive but never forget.” Survivors of
Vengeance ,
A Warning 2 57

the concentration camps retort, “Those who don’t forget can’t

forgive.”
The great difficulty for those who have suffered the most is to
differentiate between the German nation in general and the Nazi
war criminals. Some bear, unjustly, a hatred for the German
people as a whole, even the young generation which is genuinely
trying to repair the evil done. But to understand the attitude of
these implacable enemies of Germany, one probably has to have
suffered as they have done.
A man in Jerusalem once told me: “I see those murderers every
night. Night after night, they come back. I’m in Auschwitz
again, alone among a pile of corpses. And I see the SS, the bullies,
and the torturers. And in my dreams I kill them, strangle them,
stamp on them. That’s my vengeance. Night after night. And
every night the SS come back. . .

At Haifa there lives a suffering, incurable invalid. He receives

all the German newspapers and announcements of
reads the
weddings and engagements. Every time he reads of the wedding
or engagement of sons or daughters of notorious assassins he writes
a letter to the young person: “When your beloved slips the ring
on your finger, spare a thought for all the young men and girls
who did not know and never will know that moment of happiness,
all because of your father. .” . .

That is his revenge.

AUTHOR’S NOTE

The “avengers” have killed.

They said to me: “The allied courts — the French, the Rus-
sians, the Americans, the Polish —were given the right to judge
and punish the Nazi criminals. The Jewish people who had
suffered the most were not even represented at Nuremberg.”
The Jewish Underground fighters have seen criminals freed,
murderers released, executioners returned to their petty concerns.
They rebelled. “The ground of Auschwitz was still smoking and
the world was ready to forget,” they said to me. These men were
not cold-blooded killers. They were intellectuals, liberals, honest
men repulsed by violence. They felt entrusted with a mission by
a whole nation of martyrs, by millions of dead people. Risking
their lives, they decided to track down the criminals.
For centuries, the Jewish people had suffered. At the end of
the war, some survivors said, “Enough.” Enough of this idea of
the defenseless Jew who could be massacred at will. The Jewish
people will strike back, will punish the executioners, will never
again allow such crimes.
They said: “Even though we may tarnish our image in the eyes
—
of some people, we shall kill not thirsting for vengeance, not as
brutes, but for the world to know. We shall not permit ourselves
to be exterminated.” The avengers’ motto in Europe in 1945 was:
“We shall kill so that over in Israel they may build.”
Were they right? I don’t know. History will judge them. I
don’t believe in revenge. For myself, as for many of my country-
men, the only true revenge is the creation of the State of Israel.
Israel is what matters to us. The future.Most of us are not
avengers. But we know these people. Without identifying with
them, we respect these men, proud of being Jews, who committed
violent acts, of which they themselves are repulsed, in the name
of a whole nation, to prevent a repetition of the past.
25 9
z6o THE AVENGERS

Right or wrong, just as the Israeli people know these men,

history must know them.
For this reason, I have written The Avengers.
Michael Bar-Zohar
 «

SOURCE MATERIAL
Much of the material for this book has come fro?n confidetitial
sources which, unfortunately, I am not at liberty to divulge. A
great many interviews also come into this category. In the Middle
East, Europe, and North and South America I interviewed a
number of “avengers,” hunters of Nazis, ex-secret agents, and
various informants who talked to me on the strict understanding
that their names would not be revealed. I can only thank these
anonymous contributor for the very great help they gave me.
Some of my sources are as follows:

Israel

Interviews with:
The four leaders of the Nakam group (in July and November
1966).
The chief of the commando that executed “Eichmann” (Novem-
ber 1966).
Avengers belonging to other groups (July, August, and Novem-
ber 1966).
People who took part in vengeance activities or who knew about
them: General Chaim Laskov, Oleg Gutman (Alexander Gat-
mon), Emil Brik, Henyek (Manos) Diamant, Nisan Reznik, Sami
Halevi, E. Bar-Tikva, Tuviah Friedman.
The “first avenger,” David Frankfurter.
Israeli personalities: Ex-Prime Minister David Ben-Gurion; Isser
Harel, former head of the secret services; the poet Hayim Gouri;
and the writer Mussenzon.
Igal
Journalists: Habib Knaan ( Haaretz ), Alexander Doron (Maariv),
Shlomo Nakdimon ( Yedioth Aharonoth ), Itzhak Rager ( Kol
Israel ), Avital Mussenzon.
Specialists: Emmanuel Brand of the Yad Vashem Institute.

261
262 \ THE AVENGERS

Unpublished documents:
Report by B.A., dating from 1956, pn Eichmann’s presence in
Argentina.
Memorandum by B.A., dated 1959, on Eichmann.
Report by E. Brand on the war-criminal trials in Russia.
Haganah report on the activities of groups of avengers.

France

Interview with Monsieur F., the Jew who got on the track of
Bormann in Brazil (in June 1966 and January 1967).

Austria

Interviews with Hermann Langbein (May 1966, February 1967)

and Simon Wisenthal (February 1967).
Unpublished documents:
Letters and reports in the archives of Herr Langbein; archives
and cards produced by Herr Wisenthal.

Belgium

Interview with Hubert Halin, delegate of the IURD (May and

June 1966).
Unpublished documents: Report on the presence of Mengele in
Paraguay, dated March 1964, and documents on the Verbelen
affair (all produced by Monsieur H. Halin).
Photostats of letters from Belgium neo-Nazi movements.

West Germany

Interviews with:
Father Preuss (who met in Russia one of the “witnesses” of
Bormann’s “death”), at Venusberg-Bonn (December i960).
Heinz Wolf, Public Prosecutor at Frankfurt (December i960).
Dr. Fritz Bauer, Public Prosecutor for the Land of Hesse
(March 1967).
Also various other personalities.
Source Material « 263

Latin America

In the course of my America I interviewed too

travels in Latin
many people to be able to cite them all. But in nearly every
country I visited I had interviews with a number of Israeli and
French diplomats, and, to a lesser extent, with Yugoslav, German,
and British and American diplomats.

Argentina

Interviews with:
Silvano Santander, former Member of Parliament and former
ambassador (September 1966).
Dr. Simon Levinton, of the United Front against Anti-Semitism
(September 1966).
Marc Turkow, secretary in Argentina of the Jewish World Con-
gress.
Dr. Goldmann, President in Argentina of the J.W.C.
Dr. Isaac Goldenberg, President of the Delegation of Argentine
Israeli Associations.

Senor Lanus, of the newspaper La Prensa.

Unpublished documents: Archives of the Jewish World Con-
gress in Buenos Aires.

Brazil

Interviews with:
Senor Neumann, chief editor of Aonde Vamos (August and
Sepember 1966).
Senor Strauch, reporter of O Globo.
Nikon Ribeiro, reporter of Journal do Brazil.
Father Leopoldino de Souza.
Unpublished documents: private archives of Senor Strauch.

Chile

Interviews with:
Dr. Elio de la Vega (September 1966).
Eduardo Novoa Monreal.
264 THE AVENGERS

Enrico Shepeler.
Several barristers and professors of law at Santiago.
Roberto Levi, secretary in Chile for the Jewish World Con-
gress.
Documents on the Walter Rauff proceedings.
Confidential reports on ex-Nazis living in Chile.

Paraguay

Interview with Dr. Otto Biss in Asuncion (September 1966).

Police and other documents on Josef Mengele.

I had interviews with members of a secret international

also
organization concerned with the hunt for Nazi criminals.
Other unpublished documents, and so forth, made available to
me included:
Directives of the Jewish World Congress, New York, on Bor-
mann and other war criminals.
Several documents on the underground Nazi organizations and
their escape routes, and others on the clandestine activities of neo-
Nazi organizations.
Photostats of several letters written by Johannes von Leers.
Directives to neo-Nazi movements in Latin America.
Correspondence between the Nazi organization in Argentina and
other organizations in North and South America.
Secret correspondence between the neo-Nazi organizations in
Europe.
State Department report on Nazi secret funds (1945).
BIBLIOGRAPHY A

The books on the Nazi war criminals that I consulted are too
numerous for me to mention them all. I give a list below of
those which were of most use to me. I am particularly grateful to
the Wiener Library of London and the Yad Vashem Institute of
Jerusalem for the hundreds of books they made available to me,
and for allowing me to consult their files,

Bailen, Sime: Pavelic , Zagreb, 1952 (in Croatian).

Bartov, Hanoch: PiTei Bagrout Tel Aviv, 1965 (in Hebrew).
,

Bezymenskyi, Lev: Po Sledam Martina Bormana Moscow, 1965 ,

(in Russian).
Delarue, Jacques: Histoire de Gestapo Fayard, Paris, 1962.
la ,

Eisenberg, Dennis: Fascistes et Nazis d’Aujourd’hui Albin Mi- ,

chel, Paris, 1963.

Friedman, Tuviah: The Hunter Macfadden, New York, 1961.
,

Gouri, Hayim: La Cage de Verre, Albin Michel, Paris, 1963.

Hausner, Gideon: Justice in Jerusalem Harper and Row, New ,

York, 1966.
Heydecker and Leeb: Le Proces de Nuremberg Buchet-Chastel, ,

Paris, 1959.
Karmi, Bederekh Lochamim Tev Aviv, 1961 (in Hebrew).
Israel: ’
,

Kempner, Robert: YS im Kreuzverhor Munich, 1964. ,

Langbein, Hermann: Der Auschwitz Prozess, Vienna, 1965.

Im Namen des Deutschen Volkes Vienna, 1963.
:
,

—
Levy, Alan: Wa?ited Nazi Criminals at Large Berkeley, New ,

York, 1962.
Naumann, Bernd: Auschwitz Frankfurt, 1965.
,

Pearlman, Moshe: La Longue Chasse France-Empire, Paris, 1961.

,

Reynolds, Quentin; Zvi Alduby; Ephraim Katz: Minister of

Death Cassells, London, 1961.
,

Santander, Silvano: Tecnica de una Traicion Buenos Aires, 1955. ,

265
266 THE AVENGERS

Schaeffer, Heinz: U-ycj 7, Julliard, Paris, 1952.

Skorzeny, Otto: Les Missions Secretes de Skorzeny Flammarion, ,

Paris, 1950.
Wisenthal, Simon: Ich jdgte Eichmann Gutersloh. ,

Les Assassins sont parmi nous Stock, Paris, 1967.

:
,

Wulf, Joseph: Martin Bormann V ombre de Hitler Gallimard,

, ,

Paris, 1963.

From the Press

My assistants and I carried out a very thorough study of Israeli,

French, German, Austrian, British, American, and South Amer-
ican newspapers, noting everything concerning Nazi crimes, the
flight and capture of war criminals. On the subject of vengeance,
only three Israeli newspapers, Maariv Yedioth Aharonoth and
, ,

Haolam Haze have published long and trustworthy accounts.

,

Yet the Israeli press, being very sensitive to the problem of

Nazi crimes and criminals, has reported every scrap of news on
this subject. I should like to thank especially Mr. David Minshari,
of Israel, for his great help in this matter. I also used the press
files of the Wiener Library and those of the Tasiemka Documen-
tation Centre in London. In Latin America, various people and
organizations gave me access to their press files.

A very valuable source of information were the various bulletins

and journals of the organizations of former Resistance members
and deportees, in particular the numbers of The Voice of the
Resistance ,
the Bulletin of the Camps 5
International Committee ,

and the Bulletin of the Auschwitz International Committee.

Finally, I should like to thank all the anonymous contributors
who made available unpublished documents, and some of whom
continue to seek out war criminals in order to bring them to
justice.
INDEX
Adam, F., 134, 136 Assmann, D., 12
Addis Ababa, 217—18 Associated Press, 252
Adenauer, Konrad, 152, 202 Association of Jewish Students,
Admiral Graf Spee (ship), 97, 71-72
101 — Asuncion, 95, 223ff., 233-34, 2 3^
Affen, von (Chilean Nazi), 241 Auschwitz, 4, 63, 91, 100, 144, 184,
Afrika Korps, 32, 33, 144 185IT.; doctors of death, 203,
Aktion Feuerland 100—2 , 215, 2 19— 20ff.
Albergo Lupo, the, 104 Austria, 3, 5, 26, 27, 34, 83, 12
Aldubi, Zvi, 192—98 (see also specific towns); and
Alexander I, King of Yugoslavia, Arabs, 144; and Die Spinne,
126 1 2off.; and HIAG, 241; hiding
Algeria, 243 treasures in,and 92-93, 95;
Allied Intelligence Service, 25 Lock Gates, 1 1 3fE. on monas- ;

Alon, Igal, 57-58 tery route, 124; and Verbelen

Alto Adige, 26, 118 case, 188, 189
Americans, 71, 72, 122, 153— 54; Avidan, General, 33, 46
and euthanasia “home,” 206,
207; and poisoned bread opera- B., Colonel, 33-34, 37-38, 53-54,
tion, 48#.; and Verbelen, 188 58-59, 88
Andrea Gritti (steamship), 126 “B. A.,” 166-68
Appiers, Hans, 146 Babor, Dr. Karl, 181, 216-18
Arabs; Arab countries, 55, 79, 81, Bad Aussee, 60, 74, 1 10
143-49, 243. See also specific Bad Godesberg, 148
countries Badoglio government, 153
Ardennes, 32, 153 Baer, Josepha, 203, 204
Arensdorff, Gerda von, 100 Baer, Richard, 202-4
Arganas, Colonel, 227, 231 Baghdad, 188
Argentina, 61, 94ff., 97—102, 1
14, Bahia, 141
132^., 139, 180, 241 ( see also Baltic States, 4, 5. See also specific
specific places); after Eich- countries
mann’s capture, 19 1; Eich- Banike, Guillermo, 136
mann’s capture in, 164-76; Bankhofer, Fraulein, 188
Mengele in, 22 iff., on monas- Barcelona, 152
tery route, 124, 125-26; Pavelic Bari, 114
in, 125-31 Barthou (French Foreign Minis-
“Arie,” 73—76 ter), 126
Ashkelon, 156 Bartov, Hanoch, 22
 1 1 1

270 INDEX

Bauer, Dr. Fritz, 162-63,, 186, 211— Brand, Emmanuel, 163

212, 246-47 Brandenburg, 208
Bauer, Kurt, 1 1 Bratislava, 77
Baumbach, Walter, 10 1, 134 Brauner, Arthur, 82
Bayer (POW), 210 Brazil, 95, 132—33, 140-42, 182,
Bayreuth, 213 241; Cukurs 247—50
in,
Becke, General von der, 99 Bread, poisoned, 47—52
Beisner (gun-runner), 244 Bremer (SS officer), 148, 154
Belgium; Belgians, 5, 36, 54, 121, Brenner, Willi, 146
150, 1 5 1 — 5 2 Rex, 150; Verbelen
;
Brenner Pass, 116, 117, 124
case, 188—90 Brickman, Colonel, 98, 99
Belgrano, 125 Briest, Dr. (Ambassador), 227
Belki, Josef, 75 Brik, Emil, 65-66, 67, 69-70, 81—
Belzec, 4 82, 83
Bender, Bernard, 146 Brisighella, 20
Ben-Gurion, David, 144—45, 226; British, the, 38, 55, 57-58, 72,
106-Eichmann, 164, 168, 174
and 144; and “German Battalion”
“Beni,” 40-43!?., 86 (Deutsche Abteilung), 33; and
Berchtesgaden, 109, no Jewish Brigade, 2 iff., 36
Berlin, 13-14, 17, 56, 82, 144; and Bruderschaft, Die 120, 123, 241 ,

Bormann’s presumed death, Brunner, Alois, 73, 147, 243-44

8; and Latin America, 96, Brunner, Walter, 104, 245
101; Mueller’s false grave, 105—6 Bucharest, 44
Bernburg, 208 Buchenwald, 3, 148, 209, 213
Berne, 13 Buchmayer (SS), 80
Bethlehem, 58 Budapest, 153
Bialystok, 181 Buecher, Rolf, 239
Bilobrik (priest), 127 Buenos Aires, 95, 97-99!?., 119,
Bismarck, Prince Otto von, 202 134, 164!?., 240. See also specific
Biss, Dr. Otto, 232-34, 236-37 refugees
Blaas, Rudolf, 104-5, ll 7 Bulgaria, 5
107-Major, 109
Blitt, Burech, Dr., 2 1

Blum, Wilhelm, 80 Burger, Anton, 72, 73

Blumenau, 95, 132, 141
Bohne, Dr. Bernhardt, 2 1 Cairo, 123, 144, 147, 148, 188, 192,
Bolzano, 117, 124—25 213, 241
Bonner, Egon, 136 r Camporosso, 33
Borislav, 72 Cape Town, 188, 242
Bormann, Gerda, 117 CAPRI, 133-34, i6 T i6 5
Bormann, Martin, 59, 76, 99IL, Caritas, 115, 124
8, 138, 139-42, 152, 210, “Carmel Redoubt,” 32
212, 232-37; and Aldubi and Ce Soir (paper), 154
Degrelle fiasco, 193!?.; and Centro Europa, 122
Lock Gates, 112, 116-19; von Cerff, Karl, 188
Leers and, 135 Chelmno, 4
Bouche, Colonel de, 146 Chetniks, 53
Index * 271

Chile, 96, 132, 138, 148, 238—41 grelle to, 151; and HI AG, 241;
Chiloe, 96 and Lock Gates, ii3ff.
Chmielewski, Karl, 254 De Pauli ( Spinne agent), 12
Churchill, Winston, 86 Dettelman (sailor), 101
Clarinda (paper), 98 Deutsche Abteilung. See “Ger-
Clauberg, Dr. Karl, 184-86, 215 man Battalion”
Cohen, Dov, 24 Deutsche Bank, 98, 100, 137
Cohen, Elie, 245, 246 Deutsche La Plata Xeitung 98 ,

Collegio Croatto, 105 Deutscher V erein, 122

Collegium Germanicum, 105 Diamant, Henyek (“Manos”),
Communists, 4. See also specific 63—65, 7off., 79, 82, 88, 179
countries Dirlewanger, Oscar, 145
Constantino, Dr. Marcus, 248 “Division of Eastern European
Copenhagen, 15 Survivors,” 44, 52
Cordier, 95 Doctors, 206-18
Cordoba, 95, 134 Doenitz, Admiral, 95, io7ff.
Corrientes, 132 Doerge, Heinrich, 136
Corriere della Sera (paper), 183 Doron, Alexandre, 83
Costa, Cicero, 232 Draganovik (priest), 127
Crinis, Professor de, 209 Drancy, 244
Croatian nationalist movement, Drayer (Gestapo head), 69
73 ,
IO 5 , I26ff. Drohobycz, 72
Cukurs, Herbert, 192, 247-53 Durcansky, Jan, 136
“Custard Tart” Operation, 193-98 Dusseldorf, 12 1, 152
Czechoslovakia; Czechs, 5, 51, 52,
72, 136, 247; Skoda works, 146 Eban, Abba, 170, 171
Czestochowa, 75 Eckstein, Alexander von, 223
Ecuador, 238
Eden, Anthony, 108
Dachau, 184 Egypt, 144, 145-46, 147-48. See
Daemling, Joachim, 146 also Cairo
“Dafna,” 65, 66, 69, 70 Ehle (Nazi), 181
Daily Express (paper), 178 Ehrlinger, General, 199—200
Damascus, 123, 143, 147,192, 243 Eichelberger (companion of Dir-
DANA, 51 lewanger), 146
Dansk Frontkarnpjer Forbindet, Eichmann, Adolf, 59— 62, 7
6—
73,
1 2 78, 79, 10-12, 245; Aldubi and,
1

Danzig, 80 192-93; to Argentina, 125; on

Daruvar, 11,13 Brunner, 243; capture of, 1 6 1—
Davar (paper), 167 177, 178, 179-81, 186-87, 1- O
Davos, 14—17 192, 255, 256; and Mufti of
Dayan, Moshe, 32 Jerusalem, 144; possible Bor-
Degrelle, Leon, 118, 150-53, 191- mann postcard to, 234; von
198 Leers and, 135
Denia, 148 Eichmann, Dieter, 110, 165
Denmark, 5, 108, 121, 210; De- Eichmann, Francisco, 166
 1 3 1

2 72 INDEX

Eichmann, Horst, 165 s sassination of King Alexander

Eichmann, Kal Klaus, 165 in, 126; Foreign Legion, 145;
Eichmann, Vera Liebl, 59-60, arid Lock Gates, 14; and 1

no, 164—65, 166, 170, 175, 179 Nakam, 48, 51-52; Skorzeny in,
Eichmann the Minister of Death
, , G4
I92 Franciscans, 124, 125
.

Einsatzgruppen, 4, 199-200 Franck, Hans, 109

Eisele, Dr. Hans, 148, 213 Franco and Franco government,
Eisenberg, Dennis, 240-41 i5off.
Eisenhower, Dwight D., 154 Frank, Anne, 18
El A 1 Airways, i7off. Frankfurt, 11— 13, 56, 163— 64, 247
El Ard, Madjed Cheik, 245 Frankfurter, Rabbi, 11, 17
Eldad, Nourit (Nora Aldot), Frankfurter, David, 11-18, 19
225-26 Freude, Ludwig, 97, 99, 137, 138
^
Eldorado, 132 Frezza, Dr. Pino, 139
Encarnacion, 132 Firburgo, 242
Enneri and Company, 183 Friedenthal, Jonathan, 24
Eps (in Jewish Brigade), 34 Friedman, Tuviah, 71, 72, 76, 79-
Espanol, El (paper), 152 81, 84, 167, 168, 178-79, 180—81
Esperia (ship), 213 Fuldner, Karl (Carlos), 133, 164
Estonia, 5
Ethiopia, Babor 217-18 in, Gadeland, 210
Euthanasia, 124, 199, 206—18 Galland, Adolf, 101, 134
Evangelische Hilfswerke 124 ,
Gartenberg, Dr. Alfredo, 248
Ezquer, Don Eduardo, 15 Gas vans, 143
Gatmon, Alex, 65, 66— 67ff., 79,
F. Monsieur, 140—42, 195 81—84, 86—87, J 79
Fahrmbacher, Wilhelm, 146 Gaulle, Charles de, 195
Farrell, General, 98 Gawenda, Alois, 73-74
Fascistes et Nazis Aujourd^hui ,
Genoa, 114, 125
240—41 Genot (Swiss informant), 195
Faupel, Wilhelm, 97, 98-99, 100, “German Battalion” ( Deutsche
101, 138 Abteilung) 32-38, 46, 48 ,

Feiersleben, Hans, in Germany; the Germans, passim

Feinson, Jacques, 195, 196-97, 198 ( see also specific persons,
Filho, Alcido Cintra Bueno, 249 places); number of localities
Final Solution, 58, 63;? summary, “purged” of Jews, 5; number of
2-4 Jews exterminated, 5
Firth, Dr. Alexander Egon, 156— Gestapo, 25, 26, 64 ( see also spe-
!
58 cific members); and the Lock
Fistouk, 24 Gates, 1
1

Flensburg, 108, 118 Ghana, 214—16, 246

FLN, 243 Gil’ad, Shalom, 23—24, 27, 30—31,
Florianopolis, 95 35-36
Formosa, Argentina, 95, 132 Gilbert, Colonel, 98
France; the French, 5, 36, 244; as- Giovanna C. (ship), 126
Index 2 73
«

Glasenbach, 73, 120 Heidelberg, 201

Gleim, Leopold, 146 Heiden (in Security Police), 103
Goebbels, Dr. Paul, 91 Heiden, Louis, 146
Goercke, Paul, 148 Hein (POW), 210
Goering, Hermann, 4, 13, 59, 91, Heine, Werner, 1 1

109 Hermocilla, Emilio, 236

Goldmann, Dr. Nahum, 180, 191, Heruth, 140
2 44 Hess, Rudolf, 4, 17, 82, 109, 203
Gonzales, General (Paraguay), Heyde, Erika, 210
228 Heyde, Dr. Werner, 117, 209-13
Gonzalez, Colonel (Brazil), 98 Heydrich, Reinhard, 3, 76
Gour, David, 23 HIAG, 121, 123, 188, 241, 242
Gouri, Hayim, 88 Highland Monarch (ship), 137
Grafeneck, 208, 215 Himmler, Heinrich, 4, 76, 91,
Gran Chaco, 95 109— no, 144, 185, 199
Gran Sasso mountains, 153 HINAG, 12
Greece, 5, 244 Hindenburg, Paul von, 1

Gretz, Bernhardt, 106 Hirschler, Ruth, 72

Gries-am-Brenner, 104, 114 Hitler, Adolf, n-12, 63, 76, 83,
Gritsch, Karl, 114-16 9iff., 152, 244; and Degrelle,
Gross Rosen, 181, 203, 216, 218 150; and Gustloff, 14, 17; and
Grossmann, Robert, 23 Mufti of Jerusalem, 144; Peron
Grosten castle, 116—17, 210, 212 and, 96
Grynszpan, Herschel, 19 Hjelporganisajonen for Kriegska-
Guayaquil Bay, 242 dede, 12
Guhelle, Enrique, 136 Hohenau, 95, 122, 132, 230
Gunzburg, 221 Holland, 5, 36, 108, 121, 182; and
Gusen, 254 HIAG, 241
Gustloff, Wilhelm, 14—18 Holt, Franz, 118
Horthy, Admiral, 153
Hadamar, 208, 209 Hrvatska (paper), 128
Haganah , 2 3EF., 32#., 45-46, 54- Huber, Radu Bratesca, 136
55 79 87-88, 161-62
i ,
Hudal, Alois, 105, 124
Haiin, Hubert, 186, 189, 190, 194; Hungary; Hungarians, 5, 67, 69-
and Mengele, 227 70, 91, 153, 247
Halle, Gunther, 74—75 Husen, Otto, 208
Hamburg, 56, 80, 120—21, 124, 125
Harder, Baron von, 146 IAPI, 134, 136
Harel, Isser, 161— 62, i68ff., 191, Ich jagte Eichmann 178 ,

2 44 Igls, 123
Har-Kimon (ship), 251 Iguacu, 132
Hausner, Gideon, 122 Innsbruck, 26, 34, 104; and Lock
Hausser, Paul, 120 Gates, 114-16, 1 17; on monas-
Heblin, Colonel, 98 tery route, 124
Heffelmann, Dr. Hans, 124, 136, Institute for Documentation on
2 1 World War II, 186
 1, ,1 1 1 1

2 74 INDEX

International Union of Ex-Re-, Kanija, 67

sistants and Deportees, 1 88 Karmi, Israel, 23-24, 25-26, 31, 33
Iraq, 144 Kassel, 103
Irgun 79 Katowice, 63, 69, 186
Isenburg, Elizabeth von, 1 2 Katz, Ephraim, 192
Israel; Israelis, 2 3n, 81, 83-84, 86— Kaufbeuren, 206-7
88, 1 6 1— 62ff., 246—47 ( see also Kay, Captain, 10
Palestine; specific hunters, etc.); Keitel,Wilhelm, 109
Dr. Firth in, 156-58 Keitzner, Miryam, 247, 248
Italy, 5, 20-2 3ff., 32ff., 45, 52, 148, Keller, Carlos, 136
153, 182-83 (see also specific Kete Krachi, 214!?.
towns); and Die Spinne, i2off.; Kiel, 108
and Lock Gates, 113, 1 14; on Klagenfurt, 26, 27, 34
monastery route, 124-25; Syr- “Klaus,” 24, 28
ians in, 146 Klein, Joseph, 171, 176
IURD, 188, 190 Klingenfuss, Dr., 136
Klinger (enemy of Cukurs), 248
“Jacob,” 43, 46, 49-5°. 5 1 * 55 Koch, Dr. Hans, 136
Janisch (Eichmann’s assistant), Koch, Shimon, 33, 46
1 1 Koppe, Wilhelm, 201—2
Jauhs, Werner, 136 Korpovitz, Moshe, 24
Jelina, 68-69 Kreutzfeld, Professor, 2 1

Jerusalem, 57 Kruger (Bormann’s secretary),

Jerusalem, Mufti of, 144, 147 107
Jesuits, 124 Kufstein, 114, 116, 124
Jewish Brigade (Palestine Bri- Kuldiga Lake, 247
gade), 20-31, 32-38, 45, 58, 86 Kunner, Kurt, 136
Jitomir, 204 Kunzle, Anton, 248-53
Joao Pessoa, 141 Kutschera, Margit, 77
Jornal do Brasil, 229 Kuwait, 168, 180—81
“Joseph,” 48, 50 Kwaternik (Pavelik’s associate),
Juden sehen Dich an, Die, 135 126, 128
Judenburg, 34, 73, 74
Jiidische Rundschau, 19 Lahusen (German firm), 102
Jung, Bernard, 236 Lahusen and Staud Estancias
Jung, Werner, 223 Company, 138
Jurges, Heinrich Gustav, 136 Lake Grodno, 181
Juventud (paper), 152 Lake Toplitz, 92
La Plata, 101
Kaduk (Nazi), 186 Langbein, Hermann, 183, 184-87,
Kallus, Kurt, 136 189, 204—5, 214, 218; and Men-
Kaltenbrunner (Nazi criminal), gele, 221, 223, 232
76, 1 10— 11 Lartigue, Emile, 188
Kameradenschaft, Die 241 Laskov, Chaim, 24, 26, 33, 38, 176
Kameradeniverk, 134 Latin American Institute, 97
Kameradschaft IV, 12 Latvia, 5. See also specific towns
Index «
2 75

Liberte (ship), 194 Masenbacher, Maria, 77—78

Liechtenstein, 94, 95 Matto Grosso, 132-33, 138, 142,
Lienau, Heinrich, 108 2 37
Ligne, Prince de, 153 Mauthausen, 146, 179
Lindau, 114 Megeve, 154
Linick, Major, 202 Mein Kampf (bpok), 146
Linz, 123, 179, 208 Mein Kampf (in Peru), 242
Lipperheide, Eric, 136 Meisels, Isaak, 188-89
Lithuania; Lithuanians, 4, 5, 247, Memmingen, 114
248 Mengele, Alois, 222, 232
“Little Ginger,” 34 Mengele, Irene Maria Sconwein,
Leers, Johannes von, 135, 139—40, 221
147-48, 166, 192 Mengele, Dr. Josef, 135, 186, 215,
Lehi, 82 219-32, 234, 242
Lehmann (Syrian recruiter), 147 Merano, 105, 114, 117
Letts, 4 Mer curio (paper), 238
Leute, Ricardo von, 97, 99, 101, Merkatz, Dr. Hans von, 101
1 37-38 Mertens, Gerhard, 146
Lock Gates, 112, 1 1 3 — 19, 148, 222, Middle East. See Arabs; specific
241 countries, refugees
Longue Chasse, La (Pearlman), Milhailovic, Father, 105
77 n 3 n l6 5 n 2 4 6
, 1 -> .
Milan, 183
Look 192, 193
,
Mishmar Haemek, 32
Liibeck, 80 Mittelbach, Colonel, 98, 99
Lublin, Jews from, 40-52 Mittenwald, 104
Luburic, Maks, 151 Mohatch, 65
Lucht Import and Export Com- Monastery route, 124-25!?.
pany, 152 Monreal, Eduardo Novoa, 238
Luder, Karl, 146 Montevideo, 249, 250—52
Ludwigsburg, 199 Montgomery, Bernard Law Mont-
Lukas, Stephan, 18-19 gomery, Lord, 108
Luxburg, Count, 97, 99 “Moshe,” 44!?., 51, 54
Luxembourg, 5 Mount Carmel, 32
Mueller, Feldwebel, 201
MacColl, Rene, 178 Mueller, Heinrich, 76, 136
“Madagascar Plan,” 3 Muller, Kaethu, 136—37
Madrid, 97, 100, 101, 118, 152, 188, Munich, 56, 103, 114
192, 241 Murphy, Captain, 206
Maidanek, 4 Mussenzon, Avital, 194
Malmo, 188 Mussenzon, Igal, 193-94, 195, 196,
Manaus, 14 197-98
Mandic, Dominik, 127, 128 Mussolini, Benito, 126, 139, 153
Manteufel, General von, 120
Mapusch, Baron Georg, 241 Nacht Express , 135
Marais, Jean, 188 Nageler, Victor, 72—73
Marseilles, 126 Nakam 46—52, 53-56
y
 1 1 1 ; 1 1 1

27 6 INDEX

Nakdimon, S., 56 122, 132, 191-92; Bormann in,

Naples, 1
14, 144 233-34, 236; Mengele in, 2 2 2ff.,
Nasser, Gamal Abdal, 148, 154 234 ^
Natan, Asher Ben. See Pier, Parana Misiones, 95
Arthur Paris, Skorzeny in, 154
Nathan (Israeli Army officer), 53 Paso de los Libres, 132
Nauders, 104-5, XI 4 Patagonia, 95, 101, 138
Naumann, Dr. Werner, 152, 154 Pavelic, Ante, 73, 105, 125-31, 255
Neue Internazionale Reportage ,
Pavelic, Mara, 127
187—88 Pavliczek, Stanislas, 186
New York Times 218 ,
Pearlman, Moshe, 77, 133, 165, 246
Nicolossi (
Spinne agent), 12 Peritier, Major, 228
Niebuhr, Dietrich, 97, 98, 100 Peron, Eva, 98
Night of the Broken Glass, 3, 19, Peron, Juan, 96, 98, 99; fall of,
199 132, 147; and Lock Gates, 114;
Nkrumah, Kwame, 214, 216 and Pavelic, 128, 129; Skorzeny
NKVD, 43 and, 154
Norway, 5, 121, 151, 241 Pertine, General, 98, 99
NPD, 188 Peru, 96, 242
Nuremberg, 47-52, 56-5 7 Pier, Arthur, 70-71, 73, 7 6ffi, 79,
Nuremberg Laws, 3 179, 244
Nuremberg Trials, 55, 59, 72, 76, Piletzki (friend of Langbein), 215
hi, 137, 210, 215, 241 Piran, Belisario Gache, 98
Pistarini,General, 101
Oberdachstaetten, 1 1 Pius XII, Pope, 124
Odessa, 122, 123, 134, 135, 147, Plata River, 10
192, 241 Ploen, 210
Olderhausen, Egbrecht von, 240 Poland; Poles, 4, 5, 39-44, 53, 63-
Oppenbach (German officer), 65, 69, 72, 247. See also specific
1 1 persons, places
Oradour-sur-Glane, 146, 255 Pontebba, 35
Oslo, 15 Poppizer, Dr. Franz, 124-25
Osorno, 96, 240 Porto Alegre, 14
Ostermieting, 123 Portugal, 94, 95
Posadas, 132
Paecht, J., 1 36 Puchert (gun-runner), 244
Pairitzki (enemy of Cqkurs), 248 Puerto Porvenir, 238
Palestine, 30, 32, 36, 38, 57-58, 79,
144 (see also Haganah Israel; Rademacher, Franz (Rozli), 147,
Jewish Brigade); “Division of 245-46
Eastern European Survivors” Radom, 72, 79-80
(Nakam) and, 41, 45-46, 54-55 Raffo, Sehor, 251
Palmach brigade, 32, 33, 58 Rajakovitch, Eric, 182—83
Pa?npero, El (paper), 98 Rakosz, Heinrich, 80
Papen, Franz von, 109 Ramat-Gan, 81—82
Paraguay; Paraguayans, 95, 96, Ramirez, General, 98
Index

Rath, von (assassinated by Grynz- Sanstede, Godofredo, 97, 98, 100,

span), 19 101, 136
Rauff, Walter, 143, 147, 238-40 Santa Catarina, state of, 95
Red Cross, 114—16, 118, 123 Santander, Silvano, 99, 128, 136—
Red Hand, 243, 244 137. U8
“Red House” conference, 92-93 Santiago, 96, 238
Reich Das (organization), 239—
,
Sao Paulo, 140—41, 182, 192
41 Sarona, 57, 58
Reinhard Action, 199 Sarradj, Colonel, 244
Reitsch, Hanna, 101 Sassen (writer), 166
“Reuven,” 59-62, 78, 86 Scasso, Admiral, 98
Revesz, Lieutenant, 92 Schachermayer, Stefan, 120
Rex, 150 Schacht, Dr. Hjalmar, 137
Reynolds, Quentin, 192 Scharnitz, 104, 114
Ribbentrop, Joachim von, 109 Schaumburg-Lippe, Prince and
Ribeiro, Nilton, 229—30 Princess of, 97, 98
Richner, H., 136 Schirach, von (Nazi criminal),
Richter, Dr. Franz, 148 82
Rider, Fernando, 164 Schleswig-Holstein, 113, 210-11
Riga, 247, 248 Schleuse Die. See Lock Gates
,

Rio de Janeiro, 142, 240, 247-48 Schlickting, Walfart, 136

Rittler, Olga, 207 Schmidt, Wilhelm Hermann
Rodriguez, Ventura, 252 (“Dr. Firth”), 156-58
Roman Catholic Church, 123-25 Schnette, Hermann G., 240
Rumania, 5, 44 Scholz, Hans, 103-5
Rome, 59, 105, 18, 145, 147 1 Schule, Erwin, 18 1, i99ff., 204-5
Rommel, Erwin, 32, 144 Schulte, Francisco, 136
Rothschild Hospital, 75 Schultz, Leo, 12
Rudel, Hans Ulrich, 101, 122, 134, Schulz (sailor), 10
1
35 Schumann, Dr. Horst, 186, 214-
Rudel Club, 122, 123, 134, 241 216, 246
Rufer, Gideon, 76 Sde Boker, 174
Rundstedt, Karl von, 32 Sellmann, Heinrich, 146
Russia; Russians (USSR), 3ff., Seville, 152, 195!?.

43, 53, 67, 69-70, 72, 163, 184, SHAI, 162

Ehrlinger and,
185; 199—200; Shamir, Shlomo, 24
and Eric Schulle, 204 Sharoni, Motke, 26
Sharpley, Anne, 147
Saenger, Eugen, 148 Sheinkmann, Kouba, 81-82, 83
St. Germain-en-Laye, 154 Shepeler, Enrico, 239—40
St. Jean-d’Acre, 24 Shimoni, Yehuda, 171
St. Martin Fonds, 1 2 Shitrit (Minister for Police), 197
Salzburg, 80 Shkolnik, Ariee, 171
Samaritans of Stuttgart, 208 Shmorak, Dr. Arnold, 72
San Carlos de Bariloche, 95 Shoegl (Nazi), 80
San Sebastian, 15 Sierra (police chief), 129
 , 1 , , 1

2 78 INDEX

Silberbauer (policeman), 1 8 Streicher, Julius, 109

Sima, Horia, hi, 151" Stroessner, General, 227, 228
Simon, von (in Latin America), Strohl, Dr. Gerhard Wilhelm, 122

97 Stuttgart, 36
Sirota, Graciella Narcissa, 191 Sudbaden, 213
Skoda, 146 Sweden, 12
Skolnikov, Dr. Israel, 248 Switzerland, 13-17, 18, 94; and
Skorzeny, Otto, 32, 153-55 Lock Gates, 113, 1
1 4; Syrians
Slovakia, 68-69, 73, 244 in, 146
Smith, Cristian, 136 Syria, 144, 145, 146-47, 244, 245-
Sobibor, 4 246
Soir, Le (paper), 190
Sommer 213
trial, Tacuara 175, 19 1, 242
Sonnestein, 208 Tank, Kurt, 134-35
Sosnowitz, 62 Tarnov, 65
South Africa, 120, 122, 242 Tarragona, 196
South America, 95-102, 120. See Tarvisio, 22-23, 26, 30, 32, 36-37,
also specific places 38, 48
Souza, Leopoldino de, 242 Tauber, Colonel, 98, 99
Spaak, Paul-Henri, 152-53 Taussig, Oswald, 250—51
Spain, 94, 100, 1 18, 150— 55, 192!?.; Teissaire, Admiral, 98
and Lock Gates, 114, 118, 148 Temuco, 240
Spandau, 106—7
82, Tenenwurtzel, Hayim, 68-69
Speer, Albert, 82, 109 Tercera, La (paper), 239
Spider, the. See Spinne, Die Thadden, Adolf von, 188
Spinne, Die (the Spider), 112, Theiss, Dr. FI., 134, 136
1 20 2 2 fL . , 134, 135, 154, 212, Theresienstadt, 72, 157
222, 241 Thermann, von (Ambassador),
Spitzel, Margit, 104 97 9 8,

Sports Palace (Frankfurt), 12 Tibertius, General, 108

SS, 4, 2 5fT., 54, 70, 72 ( see also Tigges, Guillermo, 136
specific members); Das Reich Tillmann, Dr. Friedrich, 211, 212
division, 146; and Die Spinne Tirol, the, 26. See also specific
i2off.; Nakam and, 47-52 places
Stad, F. Walter, 97 Tirol Hotel, 230
Stamann, Ernesto, 136 Tisso, Cardinal, 68
Stangl, Franz, 136, 182 Tito, Marshal, i2 7 ff., 153, 182
Stars and Stripes 1 2 2 Tobias, Marcel, 24, 29, 36
Staud, Ricardo, 137, 138 Tohar, Zvi, 171
Steinbruck, Dr. Aharon, 248 Totengebirge, 92
Sterilization, 214—15 Treasures, Nazi, 92— 93^., 100—2,
Sticts, Eusebio, 136 no, 137-38
Stille Hilfe, 121, 123, 134, 241 Treblinka, 4, 79, 80, 81, 100, 136,
Stockhausen, Max von, 109 182
Strachwitz, Major General, 147 Trecate, 56
Strasbourg, 92-93 Trieste, 22, 127
Index 279
*

Tucuman, 95, 134, 164 Weber, Dr., 215

Turin, 53-54 W eg Der (paper),
, 135, 240
Turkey, 94 Weisel, Josef, 77
Twins, 220 Weltschale, Dr. Werner, 146
Wetzel, Peter, 12

Ukrainians, 4 Wienerwald, 75^

Ulm, 1 1
Wiese, Kurt, 18

Ulrich, Karl, 188 Wilhelm II, 96

United Nations, 79 Wilhelma, 57, 58
United States. See Americans Wirtz, Dr., 215
Urfach, 73 Wisenthal, S., 81, 92, 111, 118,

Uruguay, 96, 249^. 122, 145, 178-80, 181-84, 186,

USSR. See Russia 189, 218; and Mengele, 226, 231

U stas a, 73, 94, i26fF.
Wisliceny, Dieter, 59, 76-77, in
Woerle (nurse), 206, 207
Wolf, Heinz, 203
Valdivia, 96, 240
Wolf, Joseph, 105
Valencia, Duchess Louise de, 15
Worgl, 104
Valparaiso, 240, 241
Wuisner, Alberto, 136
Vatican, the, 124, 127
WUNS, 182
Vedels, Shmouel, 171
Wurzburg, 209
Velasco, Angelo Alcazar de, 100
Wuttkae, Paul, 136—37
Verb and Deutschen Soldaten 241 ,

Verbelen, Robert, 188—90

X, General, 26-27, 30, 37
Viancarlos, Miguel, 98
Vienna, 7 1 — 72TF., 183; Documen-
Yad Vashem, 162, 163, 186, 200
tation Center, 71—72, 75TF., 79,
“Yanko,” 34
81, 84, 179, 182
Yugoslavia; Yugoslavians, 5, n,
Vitschgau, 118 -
53 ->
73—74* I0 5i I2 5 3 ^ 182
Vladivostok, 70
Volberg, Enrique, 99
Zagreb, 73, 74
Voss, Dr. Wilhelm, 146
Zaim, Housni, 147
Vrancic, Stepan, 127, 128
Zarodinski, Lieutenant. See Zorea,
Meir
Wagner (industrialist), 58 Zell-am-See, 123
Waffen SS, 12 Z entralstelle, 186, 199—205
Wagner, Dr. Erich, 213-14 Zey, Maria, 207-8
Waldheim, 57, 58 Zind, Ludwig, 148
Walloon division, 54 Zolling (secret service chief), 146
Wannsee Conference, 4, 63 Zorea, Meir (Zaro; Zarodinski),
Warsaw, 3, 4, 40 24, 26, 31, 33, 38, 176
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