QUESTIONS REMAIN IN THE MENGELE CASE

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP90-00965R000706950046-8
• Release Decision: RIPPUB
• Original Classification: K
• Document Page Count: 1
• Document Creation Date: December 22, 2016
• Document Release Date: November 13, 2012
• Sequence Number: 46
• Publication Date: June 26, 1985
• Content Type: OPEN SOURCE

Declassified in Part - Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2012/11/13: CIA-RDP90-00965R000706950046-8
ARTINY ..PPEIREO
ON PAGE
WASHINGTON POST
26 June 1985
JACK ANDERSON and DALE VAN AM
Questions Remain in the Mengele Case
0 ur intelligence sources are not convinced that
Dr. Josef Mengele, the Nazi war criminal, is
dead. They believe that evidence of his
alleged drowning in 1979 could have been
manufactured in an elaborate hoax to throw off
legions of Mengele hunters, some of whom may
have been getting uncomfortably close to the
Auschwitz "Angel of Death."
At first blush, the evidence of his demise is
impressive. It includes not only the remains found
in Brazil, but letters and other documents. There is
also the testimony of Mengele's son and exiles who
knew him while he was on the lam. .
But American and Israeli intelligence sources
told our associate Lucette Lagnado that the story
of Mengele's accidental drowning is contradicted by
other evidence:
? The testimony of Gilda Stammer, the Hungarian
woman who claims that she and her husband gave
Mengele refuge in Brazil for several years starting
in 1962, doesn't jibe with other, more authoritative
evidence. Also, her husband has yet to be inter-
viewed to confirm or deny her account.
? Stammer said Mengele lived alone in Brazil. Yet
there is documented evidence that his second wife,
Marta, and stepson, Karl-Heinz, were with him in
South America through 1964.
? Members of Paraguayan dictator Alfredo
Stroessner's staff admitted to the CIA that Mengele
lived in Paraguay until 1965?three years after
Stammer said Mengele had settled in Brazil. The
staff members also told the CIA that Mengele
moved to Portugal in the late 1960s an sent cor-
respondence, including Christmas cards to them
from Portugal until late 1980"?a year after he wit
supoosed to have drowned.
? Stammer insists that Mengele was never away
from their home for more than a day or two during
the years he spent with them. Yet a CIA reoort in-
dicates that Mengele was a frequent visitor to Par-
aguay after 1965. Our associate also interviewed;.
Paraguayan rancher who said he stayed in the roonn.
next to Mengele for extended periods as late as the -
1970s. A room was kept for Mengele at the smalr
Europea Hotel in Asuncion, the rancher said.
is The circumstances surrounding news of Men-
gele's death were bizarre, to say the least. After
years of inaction, West German police got an anon-
ymous tip that led them to raid the home of Hans
Sedhnayer, a longtime executive of the Mengele
family tractor firm. There they found documents
that led to the evidence of Mengele's drowning. It
couldn't have come at a more suspicious time?just
as several governments were zeroing in on Men-
-
gele, and after millions of dollars in reward money
had been offered.
? Before the drowning story broke, the Mengele
family attorney, Fritz Steinacher, publicly affirmed'
that he was "still" Josef Mengele's lawyer. Stei-
nacher also made a secret visit to Israel a few
weeks before the tip to West German police led th
the discovery of the old Nazi's supposed grave hi'
Brazil.
Did Steinacher return from Israel with alarming
news for his client? Did this have anything to do
with the sudden appearance of evidence a few.
weeks later that Mengele was dead?
The Mengele mystery still has not been solved. "
Declassified in Part - Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2012/11/13: CIA-RDP90-00965R000706950046-8