Showing posts with label Adolf Eichmann. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Adolf Eichmann. Show all posts

Tuesday, March 23, 2010

Escaping War Criminals

I was researching more about Adolf Eichmann's capture, and discovered that the "murderous doctor" Josef Mengele was said to have almost been apprehended by the group capturing Eichmann. Mengele had moved from Argentina just two weeks before they began searching for Eichmann in Argentina. Mengele escaped capture for 34 years and was found in 1985 already buried (he died of drowning)— in 1992 DNA testing confirmed the corpse was of Mengele.

One way that Nazi war criminals (including Adolf Eichmann) were able to escape Germany was through Bishop Alois Hudal, who enrolled them in camp registers with false names. Although these papers were not sufficient passports, they could be used to obtain a displaced person passport from the International Committee of the Red Cross, which then allowed them to apply for visas and leave Europe. Bishop Hudal later spoke unashamedly about what he'd done. He said, "I thank God that He [allowed me] to visit and comfort many victims in their prisons and concentration camps and to help them escape with false identity papers." He also believed that "The Allies' War against Germany was not a crusade, but the rivalry of economic complexes for whose victory they had been fighting. This so-called business ... used catchwords like democracy, race, religious liberty and Christianity as a bait for the masses. All these experiences were the reason why I felt duty bound after 1945 to devote my whole charitable work mainly to former National Socialists and Fascists, especially to so-called 'war criminals'".

SOURCES: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Adolf_Eichmann
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Josef_Mengele
http://hubpages.com/hub/The-Search-for-Dr-Josef-Mengele
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ratlines_(history)