Secret German files to reveal post war mystery of the ‘Holocaust architect’
By ANIFriday, March 19, 2010
LONDON - The story of the man known as “the architect of the Holocaust” is well known, but nobody knows who helped Adolf Eichmann flee Germany in post war era.
After fleeing Germany, Eichmann was captured in Argentina by Israel’s Mossad and hanged after a trial in Jerusalem.
There were speculations that the Vatican helped war criminals hide or escape after the Second World War - allegations Church officials have always denied.
But a secret 4,500-page document by the German intelligence service, the BND, could shed light on the post war life of the co-ordinator of the Nazi genocide policy, The Scotsman reports.
While BND claims that the files must remain secret, freelance reporter Gabriele Weber has sued the agency to declassify the documents that may answer: who helped Eichmann escape? How much did Germany know about where he was?
Weber is hoping to obtain at least partial access to the files being reviewed by three judges at the federal administrative court in Leipzig..
“I think it’s impossible that in Germany we are hiding documents about a convicted Nazi mass murderer,” she said.
The American Gathering of Holocaust Survivors and their Descendants group has also called for the release of the files.
“The withholding of files on Eichmann more than a half century after the war is unconscionable and indecent,” said vice-president Elan Steinberg.
The BND argues that much of the information came from a “foreign intelligence service”, and opening them up to public scrutiny would harm future co-operation with that unidentified country.
It was not until 1960 that Israeli agents abducted Eichmann in Buenos Aires and took him to Jerusalem for trial. Eichmann was found guilty of war crimes and hanged in 1962. (ANI)
