The Last Nazis Hunt

A few days ago, the peaceful city of Puerto Montt Chile became the scene of an unusual "ghost hunt?. A team from the Simon Wiesenthal Center, which specializes in search and capture of Nazi war criminals, was installed at the home of Waltraut Böser, a chemist from Austria for 64 years, daughter of Aribert Heim, the sinister Dr. Death, accused of having exterminated in the Mauthausen concentration camp hundreds of Jewish prisoners and Spanish political prisoners.

Dr. Death, who ranks first in the top ten most wanted Nazis used prisoners as guinea pigs for their "scientific experiments?.

Wiesenthal Center experts say Heim, born in Austria 93 years ago is still alive. The last track which is available back to 1986 when researchers found a letter from the South of Spain. At that time, the Spanish police opened an investigation into the alleged presence of former SS members in the east coast. However, the Fugitive Location Group had to abandon the investigation for lack of evidence. And this despite the fact that the list of suspects living in Spain or killed on Spanish territory is quite long. But "Heim affair? resurfaced in 1997 when the Spanish newspaper El Pais reported that Dr. Death was hiding in the Alicante region. Interestingly, the only German federal police decided to open an official investigation into his possible whereabouts in 2005, after the discovery in a financial institution for a Germanic life insurance of one million dollars on behalf of the former Nazi. To date, no payment required in the policy. It is one of the reasons why the estimate that Heim Nazi hunter hides in Chile.

The "number two? in the list of most wanted criminals is the Ukrainian-born American John Demianiuk, former guard at Mauthausen, accused by the authorities in Tel Aviv to have worked closely with Heim. For Demianiuk, justice Hebrew was unable to find hard evidence to impose a final sentence. The German courts demanded his surrender, but the U.S. Justice Department does not seem very likely to grant extradition. Interestingly, it appears that in this case, one of the people who sealed a pact with the U.S. intelligence at the end of World War II. This would not be an exception: in the early 40's, several Nazi leaders were "recovered? (Read "rescued?) By the American intelligence establishment operating in the occupation zones of Germany and Austria.

Another controversial figure appearing in the list of most wanted criminals is Croatian Milovoi Asier, secret police chief in Croatia during the pro-Nazi regime of the "Ustashi?, In turn accused of having committed crimes against civilians. His victims were mostly Serbs, Jews and Gypsies, sent to concentration camps in the area.

Asier managed to escape after the war. In 1946, he obtained Austrian citizenship, and a new identity. He currently lives in the name of Georg Ashner in the region of Carinthia. During the last European Football Championship, the war criminal appeared in Klagenfurt, encouraging the Croatian national team. Despite repeated demands for extradition lodged by the Croatian authorities through its diplomatic representation in Vienna or via INTERPOL, the Austrian authorities refused to give the green light to any legal proceeding, citing the "precarious state of health? Asner.

Today, the Wiesenthal Center is focusing its campaign called "last chance? (To capture the war criminals) on two continents: Latin America and Europe. The Nazi hunter estimated that the two regions still hidden from colleagues and friends of Adolf Hitler. Have facilitated his escape at the end of the Second World War, the powers that be more conservative or pragmatic ... time: church, secret services, dictatorial regimes and a lot of ... "etc.?. The truth is that many mysteries remain to be elucidated on the spectacular flight of Nazi criminals.

Adrián Mac Liman

International Political Analyst