Germany Hunting Its Nazi Criminals

Press, Volume XCIX, Issue 29250, 7 July 1960, Page 11

Germany Hunting Its Nazi Criminals

II LONDON. In an old prison building in south-west Germany, an undercover bureau tracing Nazi criminals is working desperately against time to bring in hundreds of Gestapo S.S. and concentration camp men who have eluded arrest for 15 years. The urgency is spurred by the fact that under West Germany’s Constitution, the time limit for bringing war criminals to trial is about to expire. Only charges of murder can be proceeded with after this . month and lesser charges will have to be dropped.

hundreds of thousands of Hungarian Jews in 1944, most of whom died in concentration camps. The fourth trial is of Nazis involved in the wiping out of gipsies. The Ludwigsburg bureau keeps its “wanted” list secret and tries to keep its activities in the shadows, for it suspects that there is an escape ring in existence for former Nazis, as well as a warning system which seems to operate when the West German police are about to swoop. Car Salesmen Suspect Now the pace of arrests is quickening. The car salesman—a favourite occupation for many former Gestapo men—suddenly finds his “customer” driving him to gaol on a demonstration run. Others, who took refuge in remote Bavarian villages 15 years ago, are being winkled out and confronted with positive identification by former concentration camp inmates. There has rarely been any denouncing by neighbouring German citizens. Most Germans prefer to consider war-time deeds a closed book. Even the official zeal of the prosecution seemed to lessen between the ending of the trials by the Allies after the war’s end and the setting up of the Ludwigsburg bureau. —(Associated Newspapers Feature Service.)

The German bureau is also spurred in its efforts by the capture of Adolph Eichmann by Israeli security men. It wants to demonstrate that Germany, too, has a memory and a determination still to bring missing Nazis to justice. Secrecy and Stealth

The bureau is housed at Ludwigsburg in an old prison. There is no brass plate outside telling that inside is the central agency for the uncovering of Nazi crimes. The bureau believes in secrecy and stealth. It might be thought that there has been too much stealth for Germany still to be hunting its war criminals through 15 years, but, in fact, the bureau came into being only 18 months ago after a conference of Ministers of Justice of the various German Lander or States. Until then the criminal police of the various States were operating separately. A new co-ordina-ted effort, it was urged, should be made to build up evidence against suspected Nazi criminals and to track them down. Too many had never been brought before a Court; too much investigation had been done more or less at random. These are not the big men. There are few men of the horror category of Eichmann still at large. There are one or two, such as Hans Eisele, the Buchenwald camp doctor whose whereabouts •re known—Eisele is in Egypt—but who are beyond reach of German law. But there are hundreds of former Gestapo men, ♦oncentration camp staff, who Slipped into post-war civilian life Usually with new names and in tew places, who were not brought trial. Four Major Groups Ir- the last year the evidence has been piling up in the Ludwigsburg prison buildings; Nazi record books have been combed, and dossiers have been compiled With the help of camp victims bow scattered through the world. One hundred and sixty groups of crimes are now being urgently investigated and preliminary proceedings for four major trials have now begun. One of these which will soon come before the Federal German Court is concerned with the mass murder of prisoners at Auschwitz concentration camp. In this one case, 950 Germans are suspected of being members of the SB. camp staff and 347 witnesses from Germany and abroad have been

Another trial now pending deals with the shooting of several thousand people in Lithuania between 1941 and 1944. Some of the Gestapo and S.S. men involved are under arrest. The third group of suspected criminals are former members of the State Security Office and the Nazi Foreign Office who were concerned with the deportation of