Argentina makes public secret files on escaped Nazi war criminals

Scores of documents implicating some of the worst Nazi war criminals were released and declassified by Argentine President Javier Milei earlier this year. The more than 1,850 documents contain thousands of pages detailing the South American country’s efforts to track and verify the whereabouts of thousands of Nazis who fled Europe after World War II.

The catalyst for this effort came from the Senate Judiciary Committee and its Chairman Chuck Grassley, R-Iowa. by Simon Wiesenthal Center For his efforts to get Milei to release the documents.

Much of the material relates to investigations conducted between the late 1950s and the 1980s and has been digitized and made available on the nation’s General Archive website, along with secret, declassified presidential decrees from 1957 to 2005.

The original set of documents published online is divided into seven large files roughly centering on the main Nazi criminals covered. There are numerous documents related to Adolf Eichmann, the engineer of the “Final Solution”, a plan to destroy European Jewry. He lived around Buenos Aires under the name Ricardo Klement until he was captured by Mossad agents in Argentine territory and taken to an undercover operation to stand trial in Jerusalem in 1960.

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Eichmann’s case figures prominently in the files, and there is conflicting evidence that Juan Perón’s leftist, populist government not only knew Eichmann was in the country but also made efforts to protect him.

There are also many documents detailing the life of Josef Mengele, the “angel of death” doctor in the Auschwitz-Birkenau camps, who lived in Argentina and fled to Paraguay and Brazil, where he died in 1979.

Documents detailing the capture of Hitler’s lieutenant and right-hand man Martin Bormann, as well as Croatian murderer Ante Pavelic, deputy Fuhrer and defector Rudolf Hess, and the so-called “butcher of Lyon” Klaus Barbie, received particular attention in the files.

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Three SS officers socialize outside Auschwitz on the grounds of the SS retreat in 1944. From left to right they are: Richard Baer (Commander of Auschwitz), Dr. Josef Mengele and Rudolf Hoess (former Auschwitz Commander). Mengele fled to Argentina, then to Paraguay and Brazil. (Universal Images Group via Universal History Archive/Getty Images)

According to Harley Lippman, a member of the Commission for the Preservation of the Heritage of the United States Abroad and a member of the board of directors of the European Jewish Association, the importance of the publication of the Argentine documents cannot be underestimated.

“There are many questions that these documents can shed light on why a sophisticated society like Argentina, far from the scourge of antisemitism in Europe, agreed to hide Nazi criminals and secrets for so long. What happened to the submarines loaded with Nazi gold that were brought into the country and given to the authorities?” he asked.

“On the one hand, it is a shame that Argentina kept these documents secret for so long, but on the other hand, we must also recognize the tremendous effort this government has made to make these documents public. While the historical significance is important, it is more important for Argentinians as a society to confront their demons than for the Jews,” Lippman said. he said.

This 1950 Argentine federal police memo, marked strictly classified and confidential, seeks intelligence on the infamous Nazi doctor at Auschwitz, Josef Mengele, and suggests that Argentine officials were aware of his possible presence or activity in the area at the time. (General Archives of the Government of Argentina)

To add to the huge revelation, in May, while Argentina’s Supreme Court was undergoing renovations and transferring its document collections to museums, a forgotten treasure trove of 83 boxes of Nazi documents were discovered virtually untouched in the institution’s basement. After examination, documents were revealed in the ballot boxes, which were seized by Argentine customs in 1941 and sent from the German Third Reich Embassy in Tokyo, Japan, to Buenos Aires, the capital of Argentina, on the Japanese steamer Nan-a-Maru.

The documents were sent as personal belongings of embassy staff, but were seized on the orders of the country’s foreign minister so as not to undermine Argentina’s neutral position in the war. The shipment became the subject of an investigation by a commission investigating “anti-Argentinian activities”, which led to the ballot boxes being seized by the country’s supreme court and kept there for nearly 84 years.

The discovery of the boxes revealed a wealth of material intended to spread and consolidate the ideologies of the Third Reich and Hitler in Argentina and South America, possibly in an effort to bring neutral countries under German protection.

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The document includes an Argentinian police report describing German fugitive Walter Flegel, believed by some to be Hitler’s former aide Martin Bormann, and living in Argentina under a false identity. It was later proven that the leadership was wrong and Flegal was not Borman. Earlier this year, Argentine President Javier Milei declassified and released more than 1,850 documents detailing Argentina’s efforts to track and verify the whereabouts of thousands of Nazi war criminals. (General Archives of the Government of Argentina)

After opening the boxes with prominent members of the country’s Jewish community, the court issued a statement saying that a thorough investigation of all material had been ordered “given the historical significance of the find and the potentially important information it may contain to clarify events related to the Holocaust.”

The contents of the ballot boxes have not yet been made public, but Milei’s office said that all documents will be declassified and made available once they are digitized.

Argentinian Council of Ministers President Guillermo Francos had previously said Milei [such] “Because there is no reason to continue to hide this information and it is no longer in the interest of the Argentine Republic to keep such secrets.”

“After the Second World War, Jews experienced a golden age of nearly 80 years in which antisemitism at least ostensibly diminished, and they could be productive and contributing members of society. This ended in part because of the genocide committed by Hamas against Israelis on October 7, 2023, because world public opinion reflected on Israelis and Jews the false role of the perpetrators of genocide in the war in Gaza, but also because the same old antisemitic views that were alive were brought back to Germany and from there.” before,” says Lippman.

A police officer stands in front of a cache of Nazi artifacts discovered in 2017 during a press conference on Wednesday, October 2, 2019 in Buenos Aires, Argentina. Argentinian authorities found this cache in a secret room behind a bookcase and uncovered the collection during a broader investigation into artworks of questionable provenance located in a gallery in Buenos Aires. (Natacha Pisarenko/AP Photo)

“The fact that many people under 30 don’t know or understand [the meaning of] The Holocaust is one of the reasons why antisemitism is on the rise again. “The Holocaust was the largest systematic industrial murder of people in history. It happened only 80 years ago. Young people can’t seem to grasp the extent of it, but these documents can bring back the memory of what the Holocaust really was,” he said, comparing the propaganda war Israel and Jews currently face in a progressive and projectionist guise.

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Beyond the lives of top Nazis who fled to South America along so-called “rat lines,” possibly under the auspices of specific local governments, the documents could also provide important information about the role played by Swiss and Argentinian banks, Lippman said.

“The Holocaust was the greatest theft in history. Many Swiss banks [which were the depositaries of Jewish money] Sometimes he would not give money to the sole survivor of a family who died in the Holocaust without their loved one’s death certificate. However, Auschwitz did not issue death certificates; They just scattered the ashes.”