AUSTRIA/NAZI

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP90-01208R000100120078-5
• Release Decision: RIPPUB
• Original Classification: K
• Document Page Count: 1
• Document Creation Date: December 22, 2016
• Document Release Date: June 2, 2011
• Sequence Number: 78
• Publication Date: February 1, 1984
• Content Type: OPEN SOURCE

I I I iII V. Ii i I ~ ~ IIII
Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2011/06/04: CIA-RDP90-01208R000100120078-5
NBC NIGHTLY NEWS
1 February 1984
AUSTRIA/NAZI BROKAW: World War II and the post-war years are full of
stories about agents who played both sides of the street.
Tonight there's yet another story, a true one, about a
double dealer who worked first for the Nazis and then after
the war for the United States. Robert Verbelen is a wanted
man in his own country, but for the moment, he's safe.
Phil Bremen picked up the trail in Austria.
.BREMEN: Robert Verbelen was a police chief in Belgium
during World War II, collaborating with the Nazis. For
murder, torture, and other war crimes, Belgum sentenced him
to death in 1917. But by then, Verbelen was in Austria
where he is today a free man. After the war, instead of
going to jail, Verbelen went to work as a spy for the
United States Army. Army records, recently uncovered, show
Verbelen was on the U.S. payroll for 11 years while
American and Soviet troops occupied Austria. The records,
heavily censored, do not say what Verbelen's intelligence
duties were or how much he was paid-in money or special
favors. In 1959, Verbelen was granted Austrian
citizenship. As a citizen, he could not and cannot be
extradited. Belgian reports said Verbalen got-that
citizenship with the.help of well placed Austrian friends.
Verbelen claims his American friends also put in a good
word for him. In the 1960s, veteran Nazi.hunter Simon
Wiesenthal got Austria to arrest Verbelen and jail him for
three years, but then the Austrian legal system decided
there was no case. Now investigators from the
Anti-defamation League are'trying to build a case all over
again, interviewing those who suffered at Verbelen's hands.
*John *Masmen was a Belgian resistance leader beaten and
shot on Verbelen's orders. President Eisenhower thanked
Masmen for sheltering two downed American flyers until
Verbelen raided their hiding place. One of those
Americans, then a bomber pilot, now is living in Illinois.
Eugene *Dingledein remembers being captured by Verbelen in
August 1944. DINGLEDEIN: 'He had us lined up with our face
to the wall and our hands up in the air, and he was kicking
and hitting us.with a pistol and threatening to shoot us.
BREMEN: Dingledein and his wife cannot understand why
their government would employ such a person. Back in
Vienna, Verbelen these days writes spy thrillers and. gives
speeches. Anti-Communist, he calls them. Verbelen says he
never saw an American named Dingledein and never tortured
anyone. He admits having used several false identities but
claims his American employers knew exactly who he was.
What they knew and when, and how much they cared to know
the Justice Department now is trying to find out. Phil
Bremen, NBC News, Vienna.
Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2011/06/04: CIA-RDP90-01208R000100120078-5