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Saturday April 28 1:19 AM ET
U.S. Tried to Find, Employ Nazis
By RON KAMPEAS, Associated Press Writer
WASHINGTON (AP) - There were the Nazis the United States wanted to try as criminals, and there were other Nazis it wanted to try out as employees.
Some 10,000 pages of declassified CIA (news - web sites) documents made public Friday reveal a wartime agency tracking Nazis as deadly enemies, and a postwar organization hiring newfound ``friends'' to spy on the Soviet Union and its satellites.
Some of the Nazis on the CIA payroll were wanted as war criminals, and some lived well, apparently profiting from stolen Jewish property.
``These files demonstrate that the real winners of the Cold War were Nazi criminals,'' said Eli M. Rosenbaum of the Justice Department (news - web sites)'s Nazi-hunting Office of Special Investigations.
In fact, many of the documents from the Office of Strategic Services, the CIA's wartime predecessor, show the OSS was determined to identify and track down Nazis. A 1946 description of Adolf Eichmann, the architect of the murder of 6 million Jews, has him as a ``desperate type, who, if cornered, will try to shoot it out.''
Eventually, however, the CIA's fledgling Cold War operations led it to rely on men wanted for crimes against humanity.
The Nazis' patrons were well-connected. Allen Dulles, a senior OSS agent, never forgot Guido Zimmer, a midlevel Nazi SS officer who negotiated the surrender of German troops in northern Italy in May 1945. The success led to Dulles' eventual promotion to CIA director.
A September 1945 memo from another, anonymous OSS official expresses pointed resentment at Dulles' protection of Zimmer, who had helped organize the murder and deportation of Italian Jews.
Zimmer ``is evidently receiving protection from some high (OSS) quarter, on the basis of his contribution'' to the surrender, writes the agent, code-named BB8. ``We, for our part, see no particular reason why Zimmer should be treated any differently than General (Karl) Wolff,'' Zimmer's superior who was tried and convicted of war crimes.
Zimmer worked for postwar intelligence in West Germany, and was never tried.
Another Nazi employed by West German intelligence on the basis of a CIA recommendation was Emil Augsburg, a strident ideologue who joined an SS unit responsible for killing Jews and other ``undesirables,'' and who was wanted for war crimes in Poland.
Augsburg worked for U.S. intelligence from 1947-48. After that, he joined German intelligence, and a 1952 CIA assessment describes him as ``honest and idealist ... unprejudiced mind, excellent scientist.''
Perhaps the most famous U.S.-paid Nazi is Klaus Barbie, a Gestapo officer infamous for ordering the murder of French Jewish children. After the war, he helped U.S. intelligence keep track of communists, and was eventually smuggled out of France.
A 1967 U.S. Army document nervously contemplated emerging reports that Barbie was in Bolivia: ``Exposure of Counterintelligence Command's role in evacuating him from Germany to avoid prosecution would have serious consequences for the U.S. government.''
Barbie was eventually extradited to France, where he was tried and imprisoned for war crimes.
The documents reveal the murky depths beneath the shifting Cold War alliances. In 1953, U.S. authorities contemplated arresting two former Nazis, Wilhelm Krichbaum and Wilhelm Hoettl, who were on the U.S. payroll - not for alleged war crimes, but for treason.
The two had failed to report as Soviet double agents Curt Ponger and Otto Verber, two German Jews who had fled to the United States in the 1930s and who returned to Germany as U.S. Army interrogators. They interrogated Krichbaum and Hoettl, and eventually befriended them. U.S. authorities wondered whether the former Nazis had been ``turned'' by their Jewish friends.
Another time in 1953, U.S. occupying forces in Austria considered arresting Hoettl when it became evident that he enjoyed publicizing his exploits as a spy. They worried the relationship ``could constitute a source of embarrassment.''
Other records show a different CIA, one trying hard to track down prominent Nazis. Countering rumors that the CIA had recruited Heinrich Mueller, the Gestapo chief, and Josef Mengele, a doctor who experimented on Jewish children, documents from the 1960s and 1970s show the agency pursuing leads as to their whereabouts.
Similarly, the documents show that the CIA knew little of the past of Kurt Waldheim, the SS officer who went on to become U.N. secretary-general and president of Austria.
So far, U.S. government agencies have declassified more than 3 million pages, and they are now available for research in the National Archives and Records Administration.
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Related News Stories
· Doctor Wary of Hitler in 1937 - AP (Apr 28, 2001)· CIA admits employing Nazis - BBC (Apr 27, 2001)
· Documents Show Nazis' Role in U.S. Intelligence - Washington Post (Apr 27, 2001)
· CIA Files Show Nazis Worked for Allies After War - Reuters (Apr 27, 2001)
· Doctor Informed CIA About Hitler - AP (Apr 27, 2001)
News Stories
- CIA Opens Nazi Files, Including Hitler's - ABCNews.com (Apr 28, 2001)- Doctor Wary of Hitler in 1937 - AP (Apr 28, 2001)
- CIA admits employing Nazis - BBC (Apr 27, 2001)
- Documents Show Nazis' Role in U.S. Intelligence - Washington Post (Apr 27, 2001)
- CIA Files Show Nazis Worked for Allies After War - Reuters (Apr 27, 2001)
- CIA Opens 20 Nazi Files, Including Hitler's - Reuters (Apr 27, 2001)
- CIA files confirm that former Nazis recruited as spies during Cold War - AFP/Yahoo! Singapore (Apr 27, 2001)
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