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About Dylan Pemberton
Expertise
My area of interest is the holocaust with particular reference to the Auschwitz Birkenau extermination camp. I can answer most questions regarding the lead up to and the ultimate deployment of 'The Final Solution' including the Wannsee Conference, ghetto liquidations, the Nuremberg Trials, post-war 'Nazi Hunting' by the likes of Simon Weisenthal etc. My knowledge / experience is perhaps best suited to someone who - for example - had a homework / coursework assignment in this area as opposed to a professional interest in which case there are, naturally, recognised experts and historians available.
Experience
Lifelong interest in ensuring the events of the holocaust are never forgotten, visits to Auschwitz Birkenau and extensive literature on the subject.
Education/Credentials
10 GCSE's, several A-Levels, BTEC National Diploma Graphic Design, 15 years senior level business experience.
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You are here: Experts > Homework Help > 20th Century History > 20th Century History > post-war 'Nazi Hunting'
Expert: Dylan Pemberton
Date: 2/19/2008
Subject: post-war 'Nazi Hunting'
Question
Dear Mr. Pemberton,
do you know if the post-war 'Nazi Hunting' is still going on? If so, I would
consider to write an article about the case of the last living nazi criminals for a
German newspaper.
With kind regards
Answer
Hello and the answer to your question is yes albeit on a smaller scale I imagine than was the case in the immediate decades that followed World War II.
There have been several cases pursued recently as it happens and I doubt that groups like The Simon Weisenthal centre (or the Israeli goverment for that matter) will ever cease to at least look at evidence / leads that are sent to them. An example would be Paul Henss who served as a prison guard and attack dog handler at Dachau and Buchenwald Concentration Camps. He was recently (September 2007) located in Georgia, USA by the Criminal Division’s Office of Special Investigations which is part of the U.S. Justice Department, I know little more than that but I assume action is ongoing against him.
Erich Priebke is a former Hauptsturmführer in the Waffen SS and was (relatively) recently convicted of war crimes in Italy for participating in the massacre at the Ardeatine caves in Rome 1944. 335 Italian civilians were murdered there in retaliation after a partisan attack had claimed the lifes of 33 German soldiers. After the Nazis were defeated, he got help from ODESSA to flee to Argentina where he lived for over 50 years. He is still serving his sentence which at one point had been altered to house arrest and the ability to travel to a place of work but I beleive this was overturned. Given your question and the fact this individual has given media commentary before, he would make an excellent reference for your paper.
Senior ranking Nazis like Alois Brunner are still being sought (although he is rumoured to have died) who was Adolf Eichmann's assistant and commander of the Drancy internment camp outside Paris. He was held responsible for sending 140,000 Jews to the gas chambers 24,000 of which were deported from the Drancy camp. He was condemned in absentia in France in 2001 to a life sentence for crimes against humanity and is, according to The Guardian, "the world's highest-ranking Nazi fugitive believed still alive." He was last reported to be living in Syria where the government has so far rebuffed international efforts to locate or apprehend him.
I think one of the most interesting things to come to mind in writing this is that the term Nazi Hunting and Nazi criminals is quite a narrow term referring to the 'big names' and chief perpetrators of the holocaust. However, what I find more intersting and more objective is the fact that while there are relatively few surviving Nazis that fit this description, there are a great deal of people still alive who - although not senior members of the party - directly helped facilitate the holocuast. This ranges from the huge number of civilians who participated in the persecution of the jews - often former friends and neighbours - to those who happily benefited from the slave labour of the Jews. These people were directly complicit in the holocaust - they may not have operated the gas chambers but they helped underpin the climate that put the Jews in the ovens. In all my research and readings on the holocaust, what has struck me is how - without wishing to over-generalise - the majority of the population denied any knowledge of either the Final Solution or even the most basic persecution of the Jews and other minorities. I find these claims incredulous at best and would personally find greater value in you writing an article about the last living Nazi facilitators - the average man on the street who helped destroy the Jewish communities before and during the war. It's still very easy for people I think to apportion all he blame to a relatively small group of people - the so called Nazis - and thus absolve themselves of any blame by claiming they knew nothing. What about the wives of the Nazi officers who served in the concentration camps, what about the industrialists, what about the people who helped loot Jewish property and assets, what about the people who spat at them in the street and told them they would be made into soap? I would be interested in knowing whether civilian survivors of the war - when faced with overwhelming evidence that the majority of people were aware of persecution and there was widespread knowledge of at least some level of atrocities - still claim to have been blind to events and if they do have the honesty to admit knowledge then; what do they feel about themselves now and do they feel regret?
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