E gli Usa divennero il rifugio dei nazisti
Rivelazione del New York Times: dopo la guerra molti criminali di guerra furono impiegati da Cia e Nasa
WASHINGTON – Dopo la sconfitta del Terzo Reich gli Stati Uniti ospitarono più criminali di guerra nazisti di quanto si sospettasse e lo nascosero agli alleati. Ne fecero uso in particolare la Cia, lo spionaggio, e in secondo luogo la Nasa, l’ente spaziale. Lo svela un rapporto del Ministero della giustizia, più precisamente del suo Office of special investigation (Osi) istituito nel ’79, rapporto venuto in possesso del New York Times. Il rapporto, di cui il Ministero della giustizia aveva già consegnato una parte, pesantemente censurata, agli Archivi della sicurezza nazionale, consta di 600 pagine e racconta molte storie. Per esempio, quella di Josef Mengele, «l’angelo della morte», il medico che condusse atroci esperimenti sugli ebrei internati ad Auschwitz. Per anni l’Osi tenne in laboratorio frammenti della pelle del cranio e capelli di Mengele. Li diede al Brasile attorno al 1985, tramite essi fu possibile stabilire che il medico aveva trovato rifugio nel grande stato sudamericano e vi era morto nel ’79.
CASI CLAMOROSI - Ma I casi più clamorosi di cui parla il rapporto sono quelli di Otto Von Bolschwing e di Arthur Rudolph. Bolschwing era il braccio destro di Adolph Eichmann, uno dei massimi architetti dello sterminio degli ebrei, che venne poi catturato dal servizio segreto israeliano in Argentina e processato e condannato a morte in Israele. Bolschwing si stabilì negli Stati uniti nel ’54 e fu assunto dalla Cia, che preparò un dossier a suo discarico nell’eventualità che venisse scoperto. L’Osi, che aveva il compito di fare giustizia dei criminali di guerra nazisti, avviò la procedura di estradizione in Germania nell’81. Bolschwing morì quell’anno.
IL PADRE DEL «SATURNO» - Rudolph era l’ex direttore della Mittelwerk, la fabbrica del Terzo Reich responsabile della produzione dei razzi V2. Fu portato negli Stati uniti nel ’45 nel quadro dellaOperation paperclip, il programma di trasferimento negli Usa degli scienziati nazisti, per lavorare alla produzione di missili. Più tardi fu assunto dalla Nasa, che si era già affidata a un suo collega, Von Braun, per il programma spaziale. Anni dopo, la Nasa lo onorò come «il padre del missile Saturno» per le esplorazioni spaziali. L’Osi accertò che Rudolph aveva impiegato manodopera schiava e cercò di deportarlo. Come Bolschwing, lo scienziato morì prima che vi riuscisse.
L'ATTENTATO MISTERIOSO - Un terzo caso fu quello di Tscherim Soobzokov, un ex SS che prese la residenza nel New Jersey, e che per motivi mai precisati fu protetto dal Ministero della giustizia. I suoi trascorsi divennero pubblici nell’80 ma non fu processato nonostante le proteste delle comunità ebraiche. Soobzokov venne ucciso in un attentato – una bomba in casa – nell’85 e i suoi assassini non furono mai scoperti. L’Osi commise un grosso errore quando identificò in John Demjanjuk, un lettone, altro rifugiato nazista, il boia di Treblinka, detto Ivan il terribile. Demjanuk venne discolpato da vari connazionali, ma venne poi mandato in Germania a rispondere di altri crimini di guerra.
L'ORO NAZISTA - Secondo il New York Times, il rapporto e la condotta del Ministero della giustizia dovrebbero essere oggetto di una inchiesta. Il giornale afferma che nei documenti si trovano anche le prove che durante le seconda guerra mondiale la Svizzera comprò dai nazisti oro di ebrei vittime dell’Olocausto. Questa circostanza fu sempre tenuta nascosta, ma di essa sarebbe stato al corrente il Dipartimento di stato.
Ennio CarettoThe 600-page report, written in 2006 and which the US Justice Department has tried to keep secret ever since, describes what it calls Washington's "collaboration with persecutors".
Agents from the Justice Department's Nazi-hunting Office of Special Investigations (OSI) found that war criminals "were indeed knowingly granted entry" to the US, even though government officials were aware of their pasts, the report concluded.
"America, which prided itself on being a safe haven for the persecuted, became – in some small measure – a safe haven for persecutors as well."
In 1954, the CIA assisted Otto Von Bolschwing, an associate of Adolf Eichmann who had helped develop plans "to purge Germany of the Jews".
In a series of CIA memos, officials pondered what to do if Von Bolschwing was confronted about his past, debating whether to deny any Nazi affiliation or "explain it away on the basis of extenuating circumstances", according to the report.
The Justice Department sought to deport Von Bolschwing after it learned in 1981of his Nazi past but he died the same year.
Another case involved Arthur L. Rudolph, a Nazi scientist who ran the Mittelwerk munitions factory. He was brought to the US in 1945 for his rocket-making prowess as part of Operation Paperclip, an American initiative to recruit scientists who had worked in Nazi Germany.
The report highlights a 1949 note from a very senior Justice Department official urging immigration officers to let Rudolph back into the US after visiting Mexico because excluding him would be "to the detriment of the national interest".
Justice Department investigators later discovered that Rudolph was much more implicated in using Jewish slave labour at Mittelwerk than he or the CIA had admitted. Some intelligence officials objected when the Justice Department tried to deport him in 1983.
The report states that prosecutors filed a motion in 1980 that "misstated the facts" in insisting that CIA and FBI records revealed no information on the Nazi past of Tscherim Soobzokov, a former Waffen SS soldier.
Instead, the Justice Department "knew that Soobzokov had advised the CIA of his SS connection after he arrived in the United States", the report found.
The report details the government’s posthumous pursuit of Dr Josef Mengele, the German SS officer and physician known as the “Angel of Death”. A piece of Mengele’s scalp was kept in the drawer of an OSI director in the hope that it would establish whether he was still alive.
Investigators used diaries and letters supposedly written by Mengele and German dental records to follow his trail. After the development of DNA, the piece of scalp, which had been handed over to Brazil, helped to establish that Mengele had died in Brazil in 1979, without ever entering the US, the report stated.
The US government has resisted making the report public ever since it was written four years ago. Under the threat of legal action, it provided an expurgated version last month to the National Security Archive, a private research group. The New York Times then obtained a complete version.
The US Justice Department told the newspaper that the report, which was the product of six years of research, was never formally completed, did not represent official findings and claimed there were "numerous factual errors and omissions" though it declined to detail these.
Since the creation of the OSI in 1979, several hundred Nazis have been deported, stripped of their American citizenship or excluded from entering the United States. The OSI was merged with another unit this year.
CIA dala „utočište“ nacistima posle rata
CDC/IB | 15. 11. 2010. - 00:05h | Foto: AFP | Komentara: 38
Tajna istorija ratnih operacija američke vlade nakon Drugog svetskog rata pokazuje da su američke tajne službe obezbedile „utočište“ u SAD za nemačke naciste i njihove saradnike, tvrdi „Njujork tajms“ na osnovu uvida u izveštaj Ministarstva pravde SAD, koji je četiri godine skrivan od očiju jasnosti.
U nizu dokumenata, zvaničnici Centralne obaveštajne službe raspravljali su o tome šta treba činiti ukoliko Fon Bolšving bude suočen sa svojom prošlošću: da li da poriče bilo kakvu povezanost sa nacistima ili da „to objasni u svetlu olakšavajućih okolnosti“, navodi list.
Kada se saznalo za veze Fon Bolšvinga sa nacistima, ministarstvo pravde je 1981. godine zahtevalo njegovu deportaciju, ali je on preminuo u 72. godini, piše „Njujork tajms“.
U celom slučaju najviše kompromituje činjenica da je CIA bila povezana sa nacistima emigrantima. U izveštajima prethodnih vlada već su priznali da je CIA koristila naciste u obaveštajne svrhe posle rata. Međutim, pomenuti izveštaj ide dalje i otkriva dublju upletenost službe u slične operacije. U njemu se pominje i slučaj Artura Rudolfa, nacističkog naučnika koji je rukovodio fabrikom municije Mitelverk u Nemačkoj. Doveden je u SAD 1945. godine zbog svoje stručnosti u pravljenju raketa, operaciji „Spajalica“, što je bilo ime američkog programa koji je regrutovao naučnike iz nacističke Nemačke. NASA je čak odlikovala Rudolfa i proglasila ga tvorcem američke rakete „saturn pet“. Dokumentacija otkriva činjenice i nivo američke um ešanosti i obmanjivanja javnosti.
Izveštaj opisuje posthumnu potragu američke vlade za dr Jozefom Mengeleom, koga su u Aušvicu zvali “Anđeo smrti”. Deo njegovog skalpa držao je jedan zvaničnik ministarstva pravde u svojoj fioci. Takođe, opisano je ubistvo bivšeg esesovca u Nju Džerziju, a u jednom delu govori se o pogrešnoj identifikaciji stražara koncetracionog logora Treblinka poznatog kao Ivan Grozni.
Vašington
Pred Kongresom izveštaj o saradnji nacista i CIA
11.12.2010
Beta
U izveštaju istoričara dostavljenom u petak američkom Kongresu otkrivaju se detalji kako je američka obaveštajna služba (CIA) koristila i štitila neke agente nacističkog Gestapoa posle Drugog svetskog rata i kako je tražila glavnog izvršioca holokausta Adolfa Ajhmana.
Izveštaj pod nazivom "Hitlerova senka: nacistički ratni zločinci, američka obaveštajna služba i hladni rat" napisali su istoričari iz američke Nacionalne arhive. U izveštaju se nalaze oko 1.000 dokumenata - snimaka, pisanih izjava, ekspertiza i analiza o tajnim operacijama CIA i vojne obaveštajne službe.
"Podaci CIA su nam omogućili da steknemo bolju sliku o kretanju nacističkih ratnih zločinaca u posleratnom periodu. Podaci iz vojske su obimni i biće potrebno nekoliko godina da se sve to pročita", rekao je koautor studije Ričard Brajtman sa Univerziteta u Vašingtonu.
Portparol CIA Džordž Litl izjavio je da ta agencija nije u to vreme imala politiku ili program zaštite nacističkih ratnih zločinaca, niti je pomagala da oni izbegnu pravdu. Litl je rekao da je CIA decenijama sarađivala s ministarstvom pravde o tome, kao i sa odsekom za specijalne istrage.
U izveštaju se navodi detalji kako su Amerikanci koristili oficire Gestapoa, uključujući Rudolfa Mildnera, posle Drugog svetskog rata. Vojska je držala Mildnera i vodila računa da ne dođe u ruke istražitelja za ratne zločine, jer joj je bio potreban zbog svojih saznanja o komunistima.
"Namera vojske da koristi oficire Gestapoa protiv komunista mnogo je veća od onog što smo do sada mislili, iako nije bilo velikih slučajeva kao što je bio slučaj Klausa Barbija", rekao je Brajtman, aludirajući na ozloglašenog "Kasapina iz Liona", koji je radio za američke obaveštajce posle rata.
Mildner je kasnio pobegao u Argentinu, gde se sastao sa Ajhmanom, koji je iz Evrope pobegao u Južnu Ameriku. Izveštaj navodi detalje o Ajhmanovom kretanju pre nego što ga je 1960. godine otela izraelska obaveštajna služba.
"Oni (dokumenti) pokazuju da je Zapad znao o Ajamanovim zločinima i njegovom posleratnom kretanju. Niko iz američke obaveštajne agencije nije pomogao Ajhmanu da pobegne, već su mu jednostavno dozvolili da se bezbedno sakrije i ode u Argentinu", rekao je Brajtman.
U izveštaju se navode i detalji saradnje CIA i nacističkih saradnika za vreme hladnog rata. U pokušaju da razbiju Sovjetski Savez preko Ukrajine, agencija se obratila pronacističkim ukrajinskim nacionalistima, među kojima je bio Mikola Lebed, koji je vodio paravojnu organizaciju koja je tokom rata sprovodila politiku etničkog čišćenja. Lebed je otišao u Njujork 1948. godina, a njegova saradnja sa agencijom je "trajala koliko i ceo hladni rat", navodi se u izveštaju.
"CIA je navodila tada da Lebed nema veze s nacistima i da je on ukrajinski borac za slobodu", dodaje se u izveštaju i navodi da je Lebed imao kontakte s agencijom do smrti, 1998. godine.
=== 2 ===
La Serbie demande aux USA d’extrader le nazi Peter Egner
Âgé de 88 ans, il réside actuellement à Seattle.
Selon l’acte d’accusation, il est mis en cause dans l’exécution de milliers de civils, en majorité des Juifs (parmi lesquels des femmes et des enfants), des Rroms et des opposants politiques, durant la Seconde Guerre mondiale.
Peter Egner aurait reconnu avoir été actif en tant que membre de la Gestapo, la police secrète du régime nazi, dans des camps de concentration à Belgrade entre 1941 et 1942.
La Serbie avait lancé un mandat d’arrêt international contre lui en avril dernier. La demande d’extradition le concernant a été déposée vendredi 26 novembre.
« La demande d’extradition a été différée de quelques mois pour des raisons techniques et à cause de la réforme de l’appareil judiciaire qui a un peu ralenti les choses », a dit Bruno Vekarić, procureur adjoint de Serbie pour les crimes de guerre.
Le département américain de la Justice a demandé en 2008 à un tribunal fédéral de radier Peter Egner de sa citoyenneté américaine sur la base d’éléments de preuve sur son rôle dans un Einsatzgruppe (une unité d’exécution mobile nazie) impliquée les massacres de de civils lors de l’occupation allemande de la Serbie.
Peter Egner ne pourra être extradé que s’il est déchu de sa citoyenneté américaine.
Retrouvez notre dossier :
« Le camp allemand du Parc des expositions de Belgrade, 1941–1944
Documents Shed Light on CIA's Use of Ex-Nazis
By Scott Shane
The New York Times
Tuesday 06 June 2006
Washington - The Central Intelligence Agency took no action after learning the pseudonym and whereabouts of the fugitive Holocaust overseer Adolf Eichmann in 1958, according to CIA documents that shed new light on the spy agency's use of former Nazis as informers after World War II.
The CIA was told by West German intelligence that Eichmann was living in Argentina under the name "Clemens" - a slight variation on his actual alias, Klement - but kept the information from Israel because of German concerns about exposure of former Nazis in the Bonn government, according to Timothy Naftali, a historian who examined the documents. Two years later, Israeli agents abducted Eichmann in Argentina and took him to Israel, where he was tried and executed in 1962.
The Eichmann papers are among 27,000 newly declassified pages released by the CIA to the National Archives under Congressional pressure to make public files about former officials of Hitler's regime later used as American agents. The material reinforces the view that most former Nazis gave American intelligence little of value and in some cases proved to be damaging double agents for the Soviet KGB, according to historians and members of the government panel that has worked to open the long-secret files.
Elizabeth Holtzman, a former congresswoman from New York and member of the panel, the Interagency Working Group on records concerning Nazi and Japanese war crimes, said at a press briefing at the National Archives today that the documents show the CIA "failed to lift a finger" to hunt Eichmann and "forced us to confront not only the moral harm but the practical harm" of relying on intelligence from ex-Nazis.
She said information from the former Nazis was often tainted both by their "personal agendas" and their vulnerability to blackmail. "Using bad people can have very bad consequences," Ms. Holtzman said. She and other group members suggested that the findings should be a cautionary tale for intelligence agencies today.
As head of the Gestapo's Jewish affairs office during the war, Eichmann implemented the policy of extermination of European Jewry, promoting the use of gas chambers and having a hand in the murder of millions of Jews. Captured by the United States Army at the end of the war, he gave a false name and went unrecognized, hiding in Germany and Italy before fleeing to Argentina in 1950.
Israeli agents hunting for Eichmann came to suspect in the 1950's that he was in Argentina but they did not know his alias. They temporarily abandoned their search at about the time, in March 1958, that West German intelligence told the CIA that Eichmann had been living in Argentina as "Clemens," said Mr. Naftali, who is now at the University of Virginia but will become director of the Richard M. Nixon Presidential Library in October.
The United States government, preoccupied with the cold war, had no policy at the time of pursuing Nazi war criminals. The West German government was wary of exposing Eichmann because officials feared what he might reveal about such figures as Hans Globke, a former Nazi then serving as a key national security adviser to Chancellor Konrad Adenauer, Mr. Naftali said.
In 1960, also at the request of West Germany, the CIA persuaded Life magazine, which had purchased Eichmann's memoir from his family, to delete a reference to Globke before publication, the documents show.
Since Congress passed the Nazi War Crimes Disclosure Act in 1998, the Interagency Working Group has persuaded the government to declassify more than 8 million pages of documents. But the group ran into resistance starting in 2002 from the CIA, which sought to withhold operational files from the 1940's and 50's.
After Congress extended the working group's term to 2007, and after the intervention of Senator Mike DeWine, Republican of Ohio; Senator Dianne Feinstein, Democrat of California; and Representative Carolyn B. Maloney, Democrat of New York, Porter J. Goss, who was the CIA director, ordered the release of the records with very few deletions.
Stanley Moskowitz, a CIA official who assisted the working group for the last year, said the delicate question of releasing operational files has long been a "nettlesome problem" but that "the passage of time has shifted the balance" toward release. He said the new CIA director, Gen. Michael V. Hayden, has agreed to continue releasing the records.
Norman J.W. Goda, an Ohio University historian who reviewed the CIA material, said it showed in greater detail than previously known how the KGB aggressively targeted former Nazi intelligence officers for recruitment after the war. In particular, he said, the documents fill in the story of the "catastrophic" Soviet penetration of the Gehlen Organization, the post-war West German intelligence service sponsored by the United States Army and then the CIA.
Mr. Goda described the case of Heinz Felfe, a former SS officer who was bitter over the Allied firebombing of his native city, Dresden, and secretly worked for the KGB Felfe rose in the Gehlen Organization to oversee counterintelligence - placing a Soviet agent in charge of combating Soviet espionage in West Germany.
The CIA shared much sensitive information with Felfe, who visited the agency in 1956 to lobby for West German involvement in CIA operations, Mr. Goda found. A newly released 1963 CIA damage assessment, written after Felfe was arrested as a Soviet agent in 1961, found that he had exposed "over 100 CIA staffers" and seen that many eavesdropping operations ended with "complete failure or a worthless product."
The documents show that the CIA ignored "clear evidence of a war crimes record" in recruiting another former SS officer, Tscherim Soobzokov, said another historian at the briefing, Richard Breitman of American University. Because it valued Soobzokov for his language skills and ties to fellow ethnic Circassians living in the Soviet Caucasus region, the CIA deliberately hid his Nazi record from the Immigration and Naturalization Service after he moved to the United States in 1955, Mr. Breitman said.
But Soobzokov would not ultimately escape his past. He died in 1985 of injuries suffered three weeks earlier when a pipe bomb exploded outside his house in Paterson, NJ. The murder case has never been solved.