Nazis Were Given ‘Safe Haven’ in U.S., Report Says

[PanzerJaeger]

The long-delayed report is finally out.

A secret history of the United States government’s Nazi-hunting operation concludes that American intelligence officials created a “safe haven” in the United States for Nazis and their collaborators after World War II, and it details decades of clashes, often hidden, with other nations over war criminals here and abroad.

The 600-page report, which the Justice Department has tried to keep secret for four years, provides new evidence about more than two dozen of the most notorious Nazi cases of the last three decades.

It describes the government’s posthumous pursuit of Dr. Josef Mengele, the so-called Angel of Death at Auschwitz, part of whose scalp was kept in a Justice Department official’s drawer; the vigilante killing of a former Waffen SS soldier in New Jersey; and the government’s mistaken identification of the Treblinka concentration camp guard known as Ivan the Terrible.

The report catalogs both the successes and failures of the band of lawyers, historians and investigators at the Justice Department’s Office of Special Investigations, which was created in 1979 to deport Nazis.

Perhaps the report’s most damning disclosures come in assessing the Central Intelligence Agency’s involvement with Nazi émigrés. Scholars and previous government reports had acknowledged the C.I.A.’s use of Nazis for postwar intelligence purposes. But this report goes further in documenting the level of American complicity and deception in such operations.

The Justice Department report, describing what it calls “the government’s collaboration with persecutors,” says that O.S.I investigators learned that some of the Nazis “were indeed knowingly granted entry” to the United States, even though government officials were aware of their pasts. “America, which prided itself on being a safe haven for the persecuted, became — in some small measure — a safe haven for persecutors as well,” it said.

And here are some of the more noteworthy filled-in redactions.

While the American support for ex-Nazis is well documented, what strikes me the most is what a waste of taxpayer dollars the O.S.I. was. The organization led what was little more than a monumental witch hunt, hunting down old men with often only the most tangential of evidence, some of whom had helped America in various respects during the Cold War and others who were completely misidentified. Vengeance, grandstanding, and politics apparently replaced justice at the Justice Department. Who would have thought that could happen?

[Fragony]

Thought this was common knowledge

[rory_20_uk]

As did I. All the major powers were at it, probably with 80% of resources getting the important players out as the other 20% bumbled around trying the less strategically important ones.

I imagine the USA has the most difficulty in squaring this circle - oh so holier than thou whilst holding it's nose in dealing with the real world.

[al Roumi]

I imagine the USA has the most difficulty in squaring this circle - oh so holier than thou whilst holding it's nose in dealing with the real world.

I'm not sure the UK escapes that.

[rory_20_uk]

Not escapes, but the UK has been doing bad things for a lot longer, and so views itself less in such black and white terms that America tends to.

Churchill went into an alliance with the USSR eyes open (a marriage of convenience, nothing more), whereas Roosevelt was far more naive.

[al Roumi]

Not escapes, but the UK has been doing bad things for a lot longer, and so views itself less in such black and white terms that America tends to.

But, becuase of the trauma and guilt, the UK tends to try to play nicely now. Not only can it not bully people anymore but it also tries to make a virtue of it.

[The Stranger]

old... news...

better news!

llamas gave home to donkeys!

[Philippus Flavius Homovallumus]

But, becuase of the trauma and guilt, the UK tends to try to play nicely now. Not only can it not bully people anymore but it also tries to make a virtue of it.

I dissagree, we slap people around plenty (in theory) but we have dropped to a Second-Tear Power now (We might be able to struggle back up to Great Power status again in another 20 years), our interests currently chime with letting others (the Americans) do the nasty work for us, mostly, we just go along for the ride to provide "credability" and then bemone American incompetance.

I agree with Panzar's point about the OSI, it often turned to awitchhunt and millions of dollars have been expended in the pointless chasing of 90-year old camp guards with grandchildren.

I mean, come one, has anyone ever prosecuted the French, Dutch, or Greeks who brutalised the young women (and their small children) for having relationships with German soldiers?

[Louis VI the Fat]

camp guard

I mean, come one

French, Dutch, or Greeks who brutalised the young women for having relationships with German soldiers?

Whatever else one may think of people who harassed women for horizontal collaboration*, I must protest equalling this with concentration camp guards.

What is it with the extreme cultural relativism about WWII nowadays? The nazi crybabies have always refused to accept any responsibility for their own conduct, or denied anything happened outright, yet won't shut up about any tiny injustice which may have befallen them. The internets seem to agree too. Soon, the neo-nazi project will be complete, and the allies will apologise to nazis for having mistreated them so badly all along.


*I, for one, do not think it is a given that these women must be off the hook as a matter of course.

[gaelic cowboy]

What is it with the extreme cultural relativism about WWII nowadays? The nazi crybabies have always refused to accept any responsibility for their own conduct, or denied anything happened outright, yet won't shut up about any tiny injustice which may have befallen them. The internets seem to agree too. Soon, the neo-nazi project will be complete, and the allies will apologise to nazis for having mistreated them so badly all along.

Your surprised the Anglo-Saxon's finds it easy to engage in relativism over there Germanic cousin.

[Andres]

I agree with Panzar's point about the OSI, it often turned to awitchhunt and millions of dollars have been expended in the pointless chasing of 90-year old camp guards with grandchildren.

So, whatever crime one has committed, one should get a free pass once the age of 90 has been reached?

At what age exactly do you think a person should no longer be prosecuted for his crimes? Can I do whatever I want at the age of 80? Or 85? Is having or not having grandchildren also a criterium?

Fritzl was 73 when he was arrested? Isn't he too old to do jail time? Or is 73 doable? Are we going to take into account certain illnesses? A mass murderer with cancer should be left alone?

Or should the criterium for not prosecuting people be the amount of money it takes to find them? If it costs more than x €, we shouldn't bother trying to find criminal Y? What kind of justice system do you have in mind?

[Philippus Flavius Homovallumus]

Whatever else one may think of people who harassed women for horizontal collaboration*, I must protest equalling this with concentration camp guards.

Weren't some of those women lynched? In any case, it was done out of vengence - which reflects evily on the vengeful.

This is the same, and it is litterally that some people (and particularly Jews, and particularly Israel) want revenge.

It's been sixty years and more now, there is no real point to this anymore, it's time for forgiveness for these old men.

Which brings me neatly to the Pope and his sense of Christian forgiveness - which is why he "shelters Nazis" as the accusation goes.

What is it with the extreme cultural relativism about WWII nowadays? The nazi crybabies have always refused to accept any responsibility for their own conduct, or denied anything happened outright, yet won't shut up about any tiny injustice which may have befallen them. The internets seem to agree too. Soon, the neo-nazi project will be complete, and the allies will apologise to nazis for having mistreated them so badly all along.


*I, for one, do not think it is a given that these women must be off the hook as a matter of course.

Oh, not at all - World War II was terrible, Hitler was responsible for it and it had to be forght to stop him. However,it was forght with blood and fury and a htred of the enemy which for some people continues to this day - that needs to end now; not least because it is places a weight of guilt upon another generation of Germans that deserves to be free of it.

[gaelic cowboy]

Even if your an 80yr old cancer patient the facility to at least have a judgement on paper against you is a right and proper action even if you never serve a day behind bars.

[Philippus Flavius Homovallumus]

So, whatever crime one has committed, one should get a free pass once the age of 90 has been reached?

At what age exactly do you think a person should no longer be prosecuted for his crimes? Can I do whatever I want at the age of 80? Or 85? Is having or not having grandchildren also a criterium?

Fritzl was 73 when he was arrested? Isn't he too old to do jail time? Or is 73 doable? Are we going to take into account certain illnesses? A mass murderer with cancer should be left alone?

Ha!

A man of 90 who hasn't hurt a fly in over sixty years being prosecuted and sentenced to life inprisonment for something he did in his 20's under a totalitarian regime where dissobedience could result in your own entire family being sent to concentration/death camps is fair? Is he really the same as a man who, at 73, is still abusing his daughter who has been imprisoned by him for years and on whom he has fathered numerous children?

Now who's engaging in fuzzy relativism?

The two have nothing in common, in their circumstances, their form of life, or their crimes.

[Andres]

Oh, not at all - World War II was terrible, Hitler was responsible for it and it had to be forght to stop him. However,it was forght with blood and fury and a htred of the enemy which for some people continues to this day - that needs to end now; not least because it is places a weight of guilt upon another generation of Germans that deserves to be free of it.

I can condemn the nazis for being the scum they were and enjoy a few pints with Husar and Ser Clegane.

It's called making abstraction. Condemning the nazis is not the same as condeming modern day Germans

I find the acts of Belgians in the Congo despicable and a tragedy, but I don't feel guilty about it, as I wasn't even born back then.

[Andres]

A man of 90 who hasn't hurt a fly in over sixty years being prosecuted and sentenced to life inprisonment for something he did in his 20's under a totalitarian regime where dissobedience could result in your own entire family being sent to concentration/death camps is fair? Is he really the same as a man who, at 73, is still abusing his daughter who has been imprisoned by him for years and on whom he has fathered numerous children?

In a fair trail, the 90 year old camp guard, surely can use those arguments in his defense... The court of law will certainly take it into account.

[rory_20_uk]

...or the Americans and their funding of the IRA.

Nothing is nice and clear cut in real life. The lead up to WWI was a disaster caused by all sides. This led to the surrender that even at the time was thought to be excessive and no way to secure a lasting peace. The fall out of this helped the Commies and the Fascists gain the vote and the Fascists won under the Nazis. The world did nothing whilst this was going on.

The vast majority in Germany didn't know what was going to happen. Nor did the vast majority elsewhere - and if they did, why was nothing done? Well, some things were done. IBM sold the sorting machines used to quickly sort those for work camps and those for death camps, and the Swedes sold them enigma machines. Britain even sold them high grade steel from the scuttled German ships at the end of WWI, with narry a thought as to why Germany needed it all.

So, another world war where atrocities were committed mainly by the Germans, Japanese and Russians with the Allies merely starving Japanese troops do death on abandoned islands, bombing the odd civilian city with incendiaries, and interning those that were ethnically similar to the protagonists.

Yes, this doesn't read like a comic. There are no superheroes, nor blameless victims. Even lumping the losers into one amorphous "villain" category should be seen as ridiculous.

Perhaps there are those here who would have preferred persecution to joining the Nazi party. Perhaps they would have refused a desk job at the first concentration (not extermination) camp. Perhaps they would have refused inmates to be sent elsewhere to Dachau et al, and accepted the firing squad for insubordination. Good on you! I've worked in several hospitals where I have seen cover ups of patients that died. Most of the time I was a junior and in all but one case not even part of the team, but I - along with everyone else - didn't speak up. So I can be pretty certain I'd not have gone to the firing squad for my principles. Perhaps that makes me as bad as under the same pressures I would probably have not the moral strength to die for my beliefs.

[Philippus Flavius Homovallumus]

I can condemn the nazis for being the scum they were and enjoy a few pints with Husar and Ser Clegane.

It's called making abstraction. Condemning the nazis is not the same as condeming modern day Germans

I find the acts of Belgians in the Congo despicable and a tragedy, but I don't feel guilty about it, as I wasn't even born back then.

Has evey Belgian soldier been hunted down and made to give account?

[Louis VI the Fat]

Your surprised the Anglo-Saxon's finds it easy to engage in relativism over there Germanic cousin.

That. And 'fascination' for Nazi Germany. And British self-loathing.

These three. How I'd hate to be a former RAF pilot who has lived to witness the spectacle evolving on the intertubes nowadays. Once, the RAF pilot was a revered man in Britian, a hero who risked everything to save Britain. A country's finest.

Nowadays, he is a criminal. A mass murderer. A despicable man somewhere slightly above a child rapist but well below a Nazi camp guard. The public image of WWII on the intertubes is 'Germany, so cool, so awesome! So hard done by. Evil British, bombing innocent civilians'.
When will Britain apologise for having fought Nazi Germany?

[HoreTore]

Few endeavours have been more worthy than "hunting down 90-year olds with grandchildren".


There can be never be any mercy for the thugs who joined the SS.

[Fragony]

I dissagree, we slap people around plenty (in theory) but we have dropped to a Second-Tear Power now (We might be able to struggle back up to Great Power status again in another 20 years), our interests currently chime with letting others (the Americans) do the nasty work for us, mostly, we just go along for the ride to provide "credability" and then bemone American incompetance.

I agree with Panzar's point about the OSI, it often turned to awitchhunt and millions of dollars have been expended in the pointless chasing of 90-year old camp guards with grandchildren.

I mean, come one, has anyone ever prosecuted the French, Dutch, or Greeks who brutalised the young women (and their small children) for having relationships with German soldiers?

Ah the famous post-war resistance, lions since may 1945. Don't know about brutalising they were shaved, but it wouldn't surprise me. There a thousands of these kids (and they all work at T-mobile)

[Louis VI the Fat]

I can condemn the nazis for being the scum they were and enjoy a few pints with Husar and Ser Clegane.

It's called making abstraction. Condemning the nazis is not the same as condeming modern day Germans

I find the acts of Belgians in the Congo despicable and a tragedy, but I don't feel guilty about it, as I wasn't even born back then.

WWII was two hundred years ago. Who cares about that ancient history.

The thing is, it is easy to mistake taking a moderate, reasonable, rational view of the conflict with 'the truth is somewhere in between', 'two sides to every story'. In between, that is, a democratic-humanitarian narrative and the Nazi narrative.
People think that in order to do Germany justice, the Nazis have to be done justice, their story incorporated into the grand narrative.

But the story of Germany is not nazism. Auschwitz was not the logical conclusion of German history. History could've worked out differently.


One does not do the criminal nor the victim justice to incorporate the perpetrators story: 'yes, but she did look funny at him, and she was wearing a very short skirt, and what was she doing outside all alone anyway'.
Neither Germany nor history is done a service by mistaking fairness to Germany with fairness to Nazism. That is a revisionist trap.

[Furunculus]

we were at it too:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/T-Force

http://www.amazon.co.uk/T-Force-Forg.../dp/1849012970

[gaelic cowboy]

...or the Americans and their funding of the IRA.

I have to nip this myth in the bud even if it is not strictly related to the thread.

The majority of IRA funding came from armed robbery and the taxing of major criminal gangs in the Republic Ireland. The movie's "The General" with Brendan Gleeson and "Ordinary Decent Criminal" with Kevin Spassy all loosely deal with the life and death of crime lord Martin Cahill aka the General at the hands of the IRA. The smuggling of cigarettes, importing angel dust a growth hormone for beef cattle making counterfeit diesel for cars and the threatening of ordinary business for protection money are just some of the ways they funded themselves.

NORAID which people in UK point to was in the grand scheme mere window dressing and far more likely to have been used to wash the money raised by criminality. In the early 1960s there were maybe 3 or 4 murders in the republic this situation quickly changed by late sixties as the newer Republican groups started to break away from whats know as the Official IRA. We went from a situation of no bank robberies to a situation where they seemed to be happening every week the actual security of the state was endangered by these groups and they became the sole preoccupation of the various Irish governments after the 1960's.

[Fragony]

Few endeavours have been more worthy than "hunting down 90-year olds with grandchildren".


There can be never be any mercy for the thugs who joined the SS.

If that includes our royal family I'm all for it. But for many it was some super-boyscout club.

[rory_20_uk]

That. And 'fascination' for Nazi Germany. And British self-loathing.

These three. How I'd hate to be a former RAF pilot who has lived to witness the spectacle evolving on the intertubes nowadays. Once, the RAF pilot was a revered man in Britian, a hero who risked everything to save Britain. A country's finest.

Nowadays, he is a criminal. A mass murderer. A despicable man somewhere slightly above a child rapist but well below a Nazi camp guard. The public image of WWII on the intertubes is 'Germany, so cool, so awesome! So hard done by. Evil British, bombing innocent civilians'.
When will Britain apologise for having fought Nazi Germany?

May be I'm out of touch, but I think that in the UK there is a very anti-war, but pro-troops attitude at the moment. Parades for returning regiments and for every coffin returned. The RAF isn't thought of as much as frankly it doesn't have the tools to do much at the moment.

In WWII the Germans did have some of the most spectacular weaponry whereas the Allies in the main had numbers; the USSR probably equalled them, but since they were the new enemy they wree airbrushed out of history. The Nazis lost, so we can still look at their gear.

Were all SS volounteers aware of what the SS were doing? Was this in the brochure? "Join up to kill women and children?" Or was it an ideological fight against Communism? Was murder the only motivation, or was there also a desire to defeat the Russians who had invaded the Baltic states?
I'm not denying or defending what they did, but again to paint the whole lot of them as sociopaths from the get go one wonders what quirk of fate made all of them to be born at just the right point to join the SS, yet dissappear without trace post-war.

[Andres]

Yes, this doesn't read like a comic. There are no superheroes, nor blameless victims. Even lumping the losers into one amorphous "villain" category should be seen as ridiculous.

It is perfectly possible to admit that the Allies killed numerous innocent people and still hold the view that fighting the Nazis was the right thing to do

Perhaps there are those here who would have preferred persecution to joining the Nazi party. Perhaps they would have refused a desk job at the first concentration (not extermination) camp. Perhaps they would have refused inmates to be sent elsewhere to Dachau et al, and accepted the firing squad for insubordination. Good on you! I've worked in several hospitals where I have seen cover ups of patients that died. Most of the time I was a junior and in all but one case not even part of the team, but I - along with everyone else - didn't speak up. So I can be pretty certain I'd not have gone to the firing squad for my principles. Perhaps that makes me as bad as under the same pressures I would probably have not the moral strength to die for my beliefs.

That's a fair point and I think it is safe to say that most people who put themselves on the moral high ground nowadays, sitting in a comfortable chair behind their pc, after a good meal, would have followed orders if they would have been in the place of young Fritz who had the choice of gassing Jews or being shot.

There are distinctions to be made, there is need for nuance and abstraction, but I understand Louis' anger and frustration. All too much, under the guise of exactly that (nuance, distinction, abstraction), are people re-writing history in an attempt to make Nazism look like just another ideology or "not worse than the Allies". Certain things are not to be relativized (sp?); Nazism and death camps are among those.

[HoreTore]

But for many it was some super-boyscout club.

No excuse.

That some of the people responsible for the extermination of millions died in peace is a black mark on history.

[Fragony]

No excuse.

That some of the people responsible for the extermination of millions died in peace is a black mark on history.

And how were they supposed to know that, SS was the elite devision of the best army in the world, that has appeal. When immigrants get no assylum in Norway and are flown out, do you ever wonder where they end up? Maybe they go directly in the shredder, would you buy that.

[Louis VI the Fat]

When immigrants get no assylum in Norway and are flown out, do you ever wonder where they end up? Maybe they go directly in the shredder, would you buy that.

Oh Frags, you're part maniac, part fantastic poet. 'Directly into the shredder' - that's both ridiculous and brilliant.

[/Off topic. Carry on with thread]