CAN JOSEF MENGELE BE CAUGHT?

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP90-00552R000404200002-1
• Release Decision: RIPPUB
• Original Classification: K
• Document Page Count: 1
• Document Creation Date: December 22, 2016
• Document Release Date: July 6, 2010
• Sequence Number: 2
• Publication Date: June 30, 1985
• Content Type: OPEN SOURCE

Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2010/07/06: CIA-RDP90-00552R000404200002-1
AR11ELE APPEARED
ON PP!
WASHINGTON POST
30 June 1985
STAT
o
ANDERSON
FOR 25 YEARS, I
have been search-
ing for Josef
Mengele, the
Auschwitz death
camp doctor who
for a terrible mo-
ment in time was god of the inmates,
with life-or-death power over them. He
routinely decided who should go to the
gas chambers, who should be used for
hideous medical experiments, who should
be worked to death.
Witnesses remember him as a soft-
spoken man who conducted his horrors
with gentle efficiency while sweet melo-
dies from his phonograph mingled with
the cries of the tortured, and fragrant
scents from his garden mixed with the
smell of cooking flesh. Inmates called
him the "Angel of Death."
Mengele kept meticulous accounts of
his experiments, but both he and his
files vanished after the Russians over-
ran Auschwitz in 1945. 1 picked up his
trail in 1960. I found some of his
hideouts-a remote village in the fetid
jungles of Paraguay. a cozy hotel room
in Asuncion, a Nazi settlement in the
hinterlands of Chile. One time. I was
only three weeks behind him.
Can he be caught? At this writing, he -
is still on the loose-the world's most-
wanted- fugitive. But his luck at last
may be running out.
Last Sept. 2. I recounted in PARADE
the anguished recollections of the Ausch-
witz twins. The Justice Department has
since ordered a worldwide manhunt for
Mengele. coordinating efforts with West
Germany and Israel to find and prose-
cute him for "crimes against humanity."
And nearly $3.5 million has been put
up as a reward for Mengele's capture-
by Israel, the friends of the Simon Wies-
enthal Center. The Washington Times.
West Germany and the Nazi-hunters Si-
mon Wiesenthal and Beate Klarsfeld.
Despite reports from Brazil on June 6
that Mengele may have died several
years ago in a drowning accident, many
believe he is still alive. Witnesses say
he is now a haggardly handsome man
projects an eerily dignified presence,
always wearing fashionable suits, even
on steamy summer days.
According to his SS file, Mengele
was bom on March 16, 1911, in Giinzburg
on the Danube. He earned advanced
degrees in medicine and philosophy. Pho-
tographs show a darkly handsome young
man, with a trace of a smile, in immacu-
late civilian attire.
In 1943, he was assigned as a camp
doctor at Auschwitz. Though only 32
years old, he was swiftly promoted to
chief medical officer. A confidential SS
evaluation said of him in 1944: "Mengele
has always proved to be an excellent
officer, respected and well-liked... He
thoroughly commands the field of anthro-
pology ... Mengele has not displayed
any weakness in character.-
I sent my associate Lucette Lagnado
to the scene of Mengele's crimes to look
for witnesses and documents. At the
Auschwitz Museum in Poland, the chief
curator said that, after a 20-year search,
she had found only a few documents:
One was a paper signed by Mengele,
"enclosing" a boy's hand for analysis.
After the war. Nazi war criminals
were rounded up for prosecution. But
Mengele was scarcely mentioned at the
doctors' trial at Nuremberg. Lagnado
spoke with Telford Taylor, who had been
the chief American prosecutor at Nur-
emberg, and searched through his papers.
The only relevant document, dated Nov.
7. 1947, noted that Mengele had sent to
Berlin 20 to 30 shipments of blood at
regular intervals. "It goes without saying
that this blood was not derived from
any blood donors," the document con-
tinued. "In fact, Auschwitz inmates were
forced to submit to Dr. Mengele, who
would then syphon their blood ... until
they would die."
Though the American prosecutors
wanted to bring him to justice-and Dr.
Gizella Perl, who had served under
Mengele at Auschwitz, offered to tes-
tify against him-Mengele escaped
prosecution. Taylor notified Washing-
ton tersely: "Our records show that Dr.
Mengele is dead as of October 6th. 1946."
The case against him was closed.
Wolfson, did try to pry information from
the Mengele family. which he found
living in luxury in Giinzburg. in the
American zone of Germany. Hours of
interrogation yielded nothing. "They lied
like hell," he recalled. One document.
perhaps meant as a smoke screen, sug-
gested the family had disinherited him.
How did the Angel of Death elude
the Allied dragnet? Documents give brief.
tantalizing references to Mengele. But
either no follow-up was made or the file
has vanished. Great gaping holes pock
his escape route, a trail overgrown by
years of assiduous cover-up.
My associate managed to get hold of
a file on Mengele, heretofore unavailable
in the West. which had been kept by the
Polish Military Commission for the In-
vestigation of Nazi War Crimes. Vari-
ous memos and letters, dating to 1947.
indicate that Mengele was hiding out
not in the American zone, as the press
has speculated. but in the Soviet zone
of occupied Germany under the alias
"Dr. Scapesius." The Poles tried to fol-
low the Scapesius clue, but the Soviets
reported that there was no evidence that
Mengele/Scapesius had ever been in their
hands. As one report put it, "Mengele
was one of the few doctors in Auschwitz.
maybe the only one, who disappeared
without leaving a trace."
The Polish investigation concluded:
"Until 1950. Mengele resided in Ger-
many. Then. most likely through Greece
and Spain. he left for Latin America.-
U.S. intelliencesourcesbelieveMen le
ascap hroug~ and . is sources
as a priest. ot
agree that the Nazi underground. known
as "Odessa" but also called "Spider" by
Nazi romantics, smuggled Mengele out
of Europe. All sources also agree, in
the words of the Polish report, that "Josef
Mengele is still hiding out in the territo-
ries of Latin America."
I began my search in 1960 in Buenos
Aires, where I cultivated the confidence
of some former SS officers. (On Nov.
13. 1960, 1 revealed in PARADE the
whereabouts of several Nazi mass mur-
derers on the lam in South America.)
These men spoke admiringly of Josef
CcrtinLied
Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2010/07/06: CIA-RDP90-00552R000404200002-1
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