Documents / FOIA release
This is a Central Intelligence Agency cable dated 14 August 1985 and sent to Washington. It forwards news clippings and magazine articles on Josef Mengele, released under the Nazi War Crimes Disclosure Act. The attachments include an Argentine magazine report on claims that Mengele lived in La Banda, Santiago del Estero, as Adolfo Gualterio Ascher, along with an interview with the judge investigating those claims. They also include a newspaper article on Mengele's protection in Paraguay and on past efforts to extradite him. The file has no UFO content.
At,
•
WORLD AFFAIRS
flavored dictatorship. Paraguay
consistently supported Israel in
the United Nations and hired
Israelis to train its armed
forces and maintain its airliners.
The Mossad appeared to ease
up on the Mengele case. In 1977
Begin tried to light a fire under
the secret service. "The order
was to 'get' Mengele, and not to
drag him before a court," 'a
former Begin aide told NEWS-
WEEK'S Milan J. Kubic. "Had
the .Mossad found him, he
would have been immediately L.
executed."
. Effort: But the Mossad didn't
find Mengele. Now, in the emotional after-
math of Bitburg and the 40th anniversary
of VE Day, the coalition governmimt of
Prime Minister Shimon Peres apparently
believes that it has to do something. Arid
Sharon, the hawkish minister without
portfolio, has charged that the government
doesn't "know how to stand up to the
goyim [gentiles]." Alluding to Bitburg,
Justice Minister Moshe Nissim told the
Knesset last week that Israel was obligated
now "to make a greater effort to bring
those mass murderers still alive to justice."
Critics charged that the campaign consist-
ed of more imagery than effort. hardl told
Israeli radio that the reward should have
been offered for "reliable information,"
not just for Mengele's outright capture by
nongovernment personnel. "Announcing a
reward or sending requests to Interpol is
not the way to catch Mengele," he said.
"The only way to do that is by an
operation carried out by professionals."
Some of Mengiqe's most gruesome experi-
ments were performed On twimis. I'cra .4Iex-
ander, a Jewish order* who saw Mengel('
almost daily, recalls the la ofth rue-'cur-old
Tito and Nina. "Mengele sewed them togeth-
er. back to back." she has testified. "Thev
screamed day and night from pain.
their mother managed to get some awrphine,
and sure killed them to end their misery."
Aiengelealsospecialized in eyes. In thejall c?1
1944. he begun to experiment on a ne■,,born
baby Dagruar. injecting dye into her
eYeb ( 11/., dal% Soon after Auschwitz Ira%
liberated in January 1945, the baby died.
Beyond sheer madness and .sadism. Men-
gele had a bizarre scientc purpose: to re-
build the "master race." He tried to turn
brown eyes Aryan blue. He searched for the
secret of producing twins so that Germany
could replace its wartime losses more quick-
ly. Aryan racial characteristics mattered
greatly to Mengele----who looked a bit like a
gypsy himself
Mengele has survived many close calls
during his years on the run. One German
source says that after slipping away from
Auschwitz, he hid out with a mistress
named Wilma, a Jew he had spared from the
gas chambers. One recently uncovereddoc-
uthent suggests that, in 1947, an American
intelligence unit in occupied Germany took
Mengele into custody, briefly and inconclu-
sively. Now the Justice Department has
acquired documents that may help to estab-
lish whether U.S. officials deliberately al-
lowed Mengele to es-
cape. One dossier conies
from the International
Red Cross, which issued
the passport that Men-
gele carried when he fled
to Argentina in 1949,
using the name Helmut
Gregor. The passport
file could reveal the
route that Mengele took
to get out of Europe—
and who helped him.
Mercenaries: The re-
ward money offered for
Mengele's capture may
set sonic bounty hunters on his trail. New
York attorney Gerald Posner, who is writ-
ing a book about Mengele, says he knows of
two groups, one American and one Brazil-
ian, that are planning expeditions to hunt
for the Nazi doctor. But if Mengele is in-
deed hiding among Paraguay's 50,000 eth-
nic Germans, he will be difficult to lo-
cate. " you're going to pull it off, you've
got to get some money up. front to do the
reconnaissance, the travel, the bribery
and to hire people," says Dale Dye, execu-
tive editor of Soldier of Fortune magazine,
the guide to two-fisted fantasy.
Dye also warns that "the hoopla
will just drive the guy under-
ground if he's alive. So the real
pros are just kind of laughing up
their sleeves."
The report is dated Aug. 19,
1944, It is written by an SS of-
ficer whose signature is illegible.
The subject isJosef Mengele.
is absolutely dependable, uprightt
and straightforward," writes the
evaluator. "In his conduct io-
ward his superiors, Men gele ha.s
shown the perfect behavior of
an SS leader." The commander
writes approvingly that Mengele
"has used the littlefree time his
disposal tO broaden his studies and has to
a valuable contribution in the _field ofan th ro-
pology using the scientific materials at /1 cc
disposal." The -scientific materials," pre-
sumably, include Jews-, gypsies and other
enemies of the Third Reich,
Josef Menge/e ought to feel right at home
in Paraguay, if he is still hiding out there.
According to local sources, President
St roessner has told close friends that Hitler
did not authorize • the murder of the Jews;
the death camps, he is said to believe, we re
the work of overzealous subordinates. Late
last year, Elizabeth Holtzman, the Brook-
lyn, N.Y., district attorney, visited Para-
guay with a group of Mengele hunters that
included Beate Klarsfeld. "One of the most
telling comments we received," Holtzman
recalls, "was from the president of the Su-
preme Court, who said: 'We admire the
Nazis. Not for their cruelty, but for their
patriotism and their militarism.' That gives
you a clear picture of the environment."
Image Problem: Like other top Paraguay-
an officials, Luis Maria Argafia, the head of
the Supreme Court and a potential succe s
-sorto the 72-year-old Stroessner, dente:,
that the government is harboring Men-
gele. "Paraguay's image abroad is being
deliberately distorted now by the press," he
maintains. But Wiesenthal says he is '' IGO
percent sure" that Mengele was holed up ill
Paraguay as recently as last June. And
Serge Klarsfeld believes that "Mengele is
living in a large private villa outside Asun -
cirin, either one owned by Stroessner him-
self or by a friend of Stroessner." The Para-
guayan leader is scheduled to make a
controversial state visit to West Germany
next July, and Wiesenthal, for one, hopes
that Chancellor Helmut Kohl will take t
occasion to put on more pressure for estra-
dition. St roessner also wants at rip to Wash -
ington; in 1983 he fired his foreign minister
for failing to cadge an invitation. But the
Paraguayan president isn't likely to receive
such an honor until he, or someone else,
produces Josef Mengele---dead or alive.
R t.SSFIL.1_ WATSON with . IIIEODOR 1 .1 STANGFR !:,
ANDItEw NA6oRsK ,,, B0,1,1 MI
KUHR FRIT) COLTMAN It■
KINI W11.1 i V;ON W,I1111g10, :101,0(C:1U
The family firrn in Grinzburg: .4 confirming connection?
Prosecutor Klein: An international effort in a race against time
NrAVSWIT.I■ /MAY 20. Not linked to a story yet.
FOIA release, from the cia-readingroom collection. The PDF is mirrored here; the original link is above. 81 pages are in the text index: search them above, or from the library's search.