Some Are Still Vigilant in the Hunt for Nazis, But Not All Governments Are Cooperative

By Tracy Dove, Ph.D
Editor, The Russia News Service

November 8, 2007

It was a mainstay of the spy literature of the 1960's and 70's, a genre in and of itself: Nazis. They were everywhere- a quiet neighbor, the local dentist- and they were plotting to overthrow the world. Authors of thrillers could always sell a few hundred thousand copies with the sinister images of crypto-Nazis shaking the pillars of tolerant society, and for the most part the unbelievable plots were eerily conceivable when one considered just how many Eichmanns there could be hiding out in those jungles of South America. But at this point in the early 21st century, what with the world already numb to the Yugoslav, Rwanda and Darfur genocides, interest in hunting-down octogenarian Nazis in remote geographies remains a vigilant pursuit of the Israeli government only. But the international community is being asked pay attention to a special case- that of the Nazi criminal Aribert Heim- because apparently this man is not dead as presumed but has skirted through several European capitals recently and remains several steps ahead of the Interpol and Mossad as well. The case will put the Nazi hunters' will to the test.

In order that the imagination is not tempted to run away on this one, we must conservatively put the number of outstanding warrants on live Nazis these days at approximately 13, and Aribert Heim is certainly one of them. But the political will to capture him has waned, and Spanish authorities- who were ordered to arrest Heim while he was in Spain as late as 2005- overslept their authority and let the Nazi doctor escape to perhaps Denmark, of all places. No one can seem to find him, and the German authorities are also dragging their feet, because many governments are silently opting for the "biological solution" to those pesky geriatric Nazis who have evaded capture so far. They can't go on living forever, and time is not on their side. But still, where has the zeal to seek out and arrest another trophy figure like Eichmann gone?

Eichmann's case is an interesting one, too, and it might be interesting to draw some parallels from it. Eichmann was on the top of the bad list, the architect of the extermination camps who shocked the world with his "normal" personality and character. He was the topic of Hanna Arendt's The Banality of Evil, and the inspiration for Stanley Milgram's shocking machine and his even more shocking theories of authority. Having escaped from American troops and eluded intrepid Austrian investigators, Eichmann was living an unpolluted life as a humble water plant engineer in Argentina when the Mossad got frustrated and nabbed him themselves. They smuggled him back to Israel in 1960 to stand trial, and many wounds were finally able to heal in the process. Where was the international community at that time? In front of their television sets of course, watching Eichmann cut the fine image of a dapper murderer-gentleman, and that label followed him even to the gallows a few weeks later. With Eichmann's cremated remains purposely dissolved in the Mediterranean, the world was relieved at having to do nothing more than show moral support for the Israelis. Eventually even the Argentines got over the sovereign insult, although Jews haven't had an easy time since then in Buenos Aires.

But that was back in 1960. Today, Heim and several others are living out their retirements in warm climates- probably penning their memoirs so that their children may become "Trustafarians" who will live off the dirty money in some tropical Margaritaville. This is perhaps an exaggeration, but what more can be concluded from the banality of disinterest that plagues national bureaucracies to turn up the heat on those villains? Heim's case should be relatively easy: his children have claimed that their father died in Argentina in 1993, but they haven't been able to produce a death certificate and therefore can't collect the million-Euro inheritance awaiting them. This was suspicious to say the least, and it took a stealthy Israeli Mossad agent just a bit of digging that Heim had been claiming- though his lawyer- tax exemptions on himself because he was "living abroad" as late as 2001.

They are out there, the Nazis, and we mustn't let pugnacity interfere with the moral certitude that we should employ in pursuing these scoundrels no matter how old they are. Milosevic was easy, Mladic will be more difficult, and Darfur will be close to impossible. Heim the Nazi doctor is remembered by prisoners as the clean cut doctor who injected gasoline into the hearts of his victims, or performed barbarous surgery without anesthesia. A no-brainer, although this sounds tasteless in such a context. There should be no price attached to upholding international law, and any moral capital we gain by pursuing Heim and the others is money we can put directly into the bank during these hard and uncertain times as ballast against what the future has in store for us.

Tracy Dove, editor of The Russia News Service, is a Professor of History and Dean of Summer Programs for the Lessing Institute. He also teaches history at the Anglo-American College in Prague.

See all previous articles by Tracy Dove here.