SANTIAGO, Chile, July 9, 2008

Tracking Down "Dr. Death"

Nazi Hunter Says He Is Close To Finding Most-Wanted SS Concentration Camp Doctor

  • Efraim Zuroff, director of the Jewish Simon Wiesenthal Center, said of Aribert Heim: Photo

    Efraim Zuroff, director of the Jewish Simon Wiesenthal Center, said of Aribert Heim: "He tortured many inmates before he killed them at Mauthausen, and he used body parts of the people he killed as decorations."  (AP Photo/Santiago Llanquin)

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(CBS/ AP)  The Simon Wiesenthal Center has strong evidence that a former SS member known as "Dr. Death" is in southern Chile or Argentina, a top Nazi hunter for the human rights organization said Tuesday.

Efraim Zuroff, the center's director in Israel, will fly Wednesday to the southern Chilean city of Puerto Montt, where SS doctor Aribert Heim's daughter has lived for years.

Zuroff and center Latin America director Sergio Widder will then travel to Bariloche across the Andes in Argentina on Friday.

Searchers think he's alive, Zuroff said, because a bank account with euro1.2 million (US$1.6 million) and other investments in Heim's name in Berlin have not been claimed by Heim's children. To do that, they would have to produce proof that Heim was dead.

Zuroff said the center has received information "that has strong potential" to help efforts to find Heim.

Heim, who would be 94, tops the center's list of most-wanted Nazi war criminals. A reward of euro315,000 (US$495,000) is being offered jointly by the center and the German and Austrian governments for information leading to his capture.

Heim, known as "Dr. Death," was indicted in Germany on charges he murdered hundreds of inmates at Mauthausen concentration camp, where he was camp doctor.

"His crimes are fully documented by himself, because he kept a log of the operations that he carried out," Zuroff said. "He tortured many inmates before he killed them at Mauthausen, and he used body parts of the people he killed as decorations."

After World War II, Heim was held for two and a half years by the United States military but was released without being tried.

He disappeared in 1962, when he was tipped off that the indictment by German authorities was imminent, according to Zuroff.

The Chilean government is helping in the investigation, Zuroff said, adding that he and Widder had a good meeting with Arturo Herrera, director of Chile's police.

The hunt for Heim has taken investigators from the German state of Baden-Wuerttemberg all around the world. Besides his home country of Austria and neighboring Germany where he settled after the war, tips have come from Uruguay in 1998, Spain, Switzerland and Chile in 2005, and Brazil in 2006, said Heinz Heister, presiding judge of the Baden-Baden state court, where Heim was indicted in absentia on hundreds of counts of murder in 1979.

Thousands of German war criminals were prosecuted in West Germany after World War II. In the 1970s Western democracies began a hunt in earnest for Eastern European collaborators who had fled West claiming to be refugees from communism, and the end of the Cold War gave access to a trove of communist files in the 1990s.

© MMVIII, CBS Interactive Inc. All Rights Reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. The Associated Press contributed to this report.

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Add a Comment See all 41 Comments
by patriot12436 July 9, 2008 8:25 AM PDT
This is brilliant. They are closing in so they doi a news release so he can disappear again. These people could be president of the United States with their brains.
Reply to this comment
by antoniof123 July 9, 2008 8:56 AM PDT
Someone explain to me why we care at this point he is so close to death that it really doesn''t matter etiher that or just shoot him if he is alive.

God this is a simple matter.
Reply to this comment
by dtiagain July 9, 2008 9:01 AM PDT
Maybe they should be hunting the criminals who attacked the USS Liberty in 1967. At least they are in Israel where they can find them!!

Reply to this comment
by mydiatribe July 9, 2008 9:04 AM PDT
The story causes me to ponder:
If anybody in US Intelligence has given a single thought as to where Al Quida operatves might base their operations from with impunity and within the Western Hemisphere?
Reply to this comment
by whiskyrocker July 9, 2008 9:05 AM PDT
This guy has to be in his 90''s if he''s still alive.
Reply to this comment
by nssherlock1 July 9, 2008 9:11 AM PDT
Leave ''Dr. Depends'' alone. The U.S., Britain, and the Vatican helped many Nazi War Criminals escape justice. What''s one more?
Reply to this comment
by kennedy7955 July 9, 2008 9:25 AM PDT
The actions of the USA and other , "allies" to protect Nazi''s is a shameful act of history that continues to this day. It is further shameful that such a man could amass a fortune and that those monies would be waiting for him or his family to claim the funds. Those monies should have been confiscated long ago.

It is further surprising that Israel has not played a bigger role in tracking down Nazis.
Reply to this comment
by tootall10142 July 9, 2008 9:40 AM PDT
Thet are still looking for a war criminal after all these years .try 1600 pennsylvania blvd. washington d.c.
Reply to this comment
by docpeter-2009 July 9, 2008 9:40 AM PDT
From the article: "Heim, who would be 94"

So what are they planning on doing with him after they capture him. War Crime, Life in prison, death penalty.

Heck, Helm probably won''t be able to stand the trip to Vienna for trial. While I agree that he was probably a very awful person he is about dead now. I wouldn''t suspect or expect this guy to be a threat to society at this time.
Reply to this comment
by docpeter-2009 July 9, 2008 9:45 AM PDT
Also, from the article, "Efraim Zuroff, the center''s director in Israel, will fly Wednesday to the southern Chilean city of Puerto Montt, where SS doctor Aribert Heim''s daughter has lived for years."

Next maybe he can turn his attention to more recent and current matters that really effect the world today. Say, maybe he can help find OBL. That would be useful research, not to mention Isreal is also intimately involved in the current "war on terror."
Reply to this comment
by sandy19731 July 9, 2008 9:46 AM PDT
DTI
You are so wrong that it is stunning.
Go back under your rock.

As to what you do to a 94 year old. You confiscate his wealth and you imprison him. Not that dying in prison is in any way retribution for his crimes but it is the best we can do.
Reply to this comment
by rhs648 July 9, 2008 9:48 AM PDT
The whole thing is a big Zionist scam to deflect attention from their systematic extermination of Palestinians.

Posted by DTIAgain

Instead of rewriting history and denying the truth, talk to the survivors of the discrimination, torture, and murder of European Jews. Further, talk to the American and Russian soldiers who are eyewitnesses to the camps, gas chambers, and piles of bodies, and starving people. To describe the Jewish victimes as "only 700,000 Jews" diminishes life in every respect.
Reply to this comment
by clestes-2009 July 9, 2008 10:11 AM PDT
You know, maybe his children don''t want his money. I mean, who would?? That predisposes one to think that everyone values money above all other concerns.

If that is all they have to go on, I don''t know how successful the trip is going to be.
Reply to this comment
by hungry1968 July 9, 2008 10:20 AM PDT
Tracking Down "Dr. Death"





Let me help:

1600 Pennsylvania Ave.
Washington, DC
Reply to this comment
by dsr57 July 9, 2008 10:25 AM PDT
You know, maybe his children don''''t want his money. I mean, who would?? That predisposes one to think that everyone values money above all other concerns.

Posted by clestes
------------------------

H&ll, I would. Money is money it all spends the same
Reply to this comment
by clestes-2009 July 9, 2008 10:34 AM PDT
hungry1968

Outstanding!
Reply to this comment
by redbds July 9, 2008 10:43 AM PDT
Tracking Down "Dr. Death"

Let me help:

1600 Pennsylvania Ave.
Washington, DC

Posted by hungry1968 at 10:20 AM : Jul 09, 2008


Just how stupid are you hungry1968?
Reply to this comment
by iuphockey14 July 9, 2008 10:55 AM PDT
DO YOU NOTICE HOW THE LIBERALS ALWAYS BLAME THINGS ON BUSH! LIKE HUNTING FOR THIS GUY. AUSTRIA AND GERMAN GOV''TS ARE CLOSE. CHILL OUT.

OH BUT IF WE HELP AND HAVE TO SEND TROOPS DOWN THERE THEN THE LIBERALS WILL CRY FOUL BECAUSE THEN THEY''LL SAY "I DONT WANT MY HARD EARNED TAX DOLLARS TO GO TO THIS POINTLESS WAR". GIVE ME A BREAK
Reply to this comment
by Torilin July 9, 2008 11:47 AM PDT
By the way, isn''''t forced starvation and disease another method of mass extermination?



--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Posted by rafterman1

It was war time, lives are hard...being a prisoner does not help either. It''s like our animals shelters...when it gets over-populated you euthanize the poor souls!
Reply to this comment
by xmanborg July 9, 2008 11:52 AM PDT
Doctor Death sounds like a new mutant that will be on the next X-Men movie.
Reply to this comment
by xmanborg July 9, 2008 11:54 AM PDT
hungry1968 at 10:20 AM : Jul 09, 2008

hungry1968 I though that was pretty Funny

& redbds your a reetard.
Reply to this comment
by xmanborg July 9, 2008 11:55 AM PDT
Posted by redbds at 10:43 AM : Jul 09, 2008

You must be one of these STUPID Republicans that think that Bushie is still doing a good job.

How stupid are you !
Reply to this comment
by babooph July 9, 2008 12:00 PM PDT
Time & funds better spent -what if he is alive -take away his malox?
Reply to this comment
by stn_sage July 9, 2008 12:12 PM PDT
Because of what he''s done, I can understand why the Nazi-hunters continue to look for him. But, what I wonder is, at a point in time, does it become impractical? If he''s alive, he''s 94 years old!
Obviously, he''s not a robust, young man anymore.

If they came across him in a hospital on a life support machine, what would they do? Quietly, pull the plug? Get a warrant and have him extradited? What?

Is it their policy that until justice is fulfilled, it doesn''t matter how long it takes or how old the individual becomes?!

I think this situation provokes interesting questions and suggests what it means to be human and whether or not mankind has the capability to ever rise above barbarism, etcetera.
Reply to this comment
by karlo59 July 9, 2008 12:28 PM PDT
DTIAgain, you are right on the money. REMEMBER the USS Liberty and the zionazis that attacked an unarmed communication ship and shot the American flag down twice. Killing many and wonding many. These people are the scum of the earth. Let''s help them attack Iran like they got us to attack Iraq.
Reply to this comment
by nothappyatall July 9, 2008 12:44 PM PDT
a former SS member known as "Dr. Death" is in southern Chile or Argentina, a top Nazi hunter for the human rights organization said Tuesday. "

Wow that really narrows it down!! maybe in about 100 years he could finally locate the CITY!!

The guy is 94 now, who cares what happens!! he managed to live a nice cushy life till now and has 1.6 million in the bank. Nothing they can do now to him would make any difference. Time to move on.
Reply to this comment
by avigil2 July 9, 2008 12:48 PM PDT
I wonder why the Chilean or Argentinian government hasn''t been more persistant in helping to capture these war criminals.
Reply to this comment
by lewiston14 July 9, 2008 12:55 PM PDT
Christ with all the other problems in the world a bunch of jerks are spending huge amounts of money to tray down a 94 year old person whose own time clock is running out quickly. WW2 tragic but at some point you have to let go of old history grudges. Next they will be looking for elvis
Reply to this comment
by mecury69 July 9, 2008 1:15 PM PDT
They should pursue until they find him or can verify his death. That is called justice.

We all would expect no less if it had been one of our relatives murdered. There is no statue of limitations for the worst of crimes.
Reply to this comment
by mecury69 July 9, 2008 1:19 PM PDT
Also, note that the reason is so people don''t murder and then have a thought in the back of their minds that people will give up and let it go at some point.

This type of pursuit places in the mind of anyone who may carry out a heinous crime like this just what the afteraffects would be.

Reply to this comment
by lochlan-2009 July 9, 2008 1:31 PM PDT
Why don''t they ask the CIA? They''re the ones who got him out of Germany and then started to use his ideas on people over here.

Look up mk-ultra, to get an idea on what the CIA was interested in him for.
Reply to this comment
by djberson July 9, 2008 1:32 PM PDT
I think they should fine Dr. Death, torture him and decorate with his body parts. I could use a new doorstop myself. His severed foot would look pretty cool wedged under it.
Reply to this comment
by j_flood July 9, 2008 2:06 PM PDT
thought you talking about Kevorkian........I guess he''s the ''other'' Dr. Death.....
Reply to this comment
by bradosol July 9, 2008 2:56 PM PDT
My father was a British soldier from 1939-45. Now he''s 94, the same age as Aribert Heim.

I''d welcome a survey of old men and women - British, American, German, Italian, etc to learn what they think about Heim and others - as opposed to younger, computer-savvy people (including me) who didn''t participate or suffer in the Second World War.

How often do we listen to old men and women, even when they are the ones with the first-hand experience?

I don''t suggest such a survey should influence Heim''s fate - that''s a matter for legal process - and there''d surely be a very wide variety of opinion.

But shouldn''t we hear their views before their time runs out?

Reply to this comment
by rgrxx175 July 9, 2008 3:53 PM PDT
Dr. Death is another word for *** cheney
Reply to this comment
by toolmangler-2009 July 9, 2008 7:28 PM PDT
thought you talking about Kevorkian........I guess he''''s the ''''other'''' Dr. Death.....
Posted by j_flood at 02:06 PM : Jul 09, 2008



What did the man ever do to you? If I end up with terminal ''anything painfull'' I would ask him to do the honors. (Pain hurts) besides, he never ''forced'' anybody to die against their will.
Reply to this comment
by libsluv2spit July 9, 2008 7:33 PM PDT
This might be just what his relatives want. For all we know, they may be relying on just such an investgation so they CAN collect on the German accounts...

Regards,


--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Posted by Nancy_Naive at 04:57 PM : Jul 09, 2008
+ report abuse


**********

NO DIFFERENT FROM WHAT YOU WOULD DO..



Reply to this comment
by wogerwabbit July 9, 2008 10:04 PM PDT
It''s good to know that war crimes and crimes against humanity are forever. Bush and the crew should be quaking in their boots.
Reply to this comment
by ioweign July 9, 2008 11:05 PM PDT
Tracking Down "Dr. Death"

Let me help:

1600 Pennsylvania Ave.
Washington, DC

Posted by hungry1968 at 10:20 AM : Jul 09, 2008


Just how stupid are you hungry1968?

Posted by redbds at 10:43 AM : Jul 09, 2008

Yeah Hungry1968 - always use Mr. Zip with your address...

1600 Pennsylvania Ave.
Washington, DC 20500-0001
Reply to this comment
by libsluv2spit July 9, 2008 11:39 PM PDT
t''''s good to know that war crimes and crimes against humanity are forever. Bush and the crew should be quaking in their boots.

Posted by WogerWabbit at 10:04 PM : Jul 09, 2008
+ report abuse

**************

I know that it would not be coming from any liberal
Reply to this comment
by libsluv2spit July 9, 2008 11:41 PM PDT
Yeah Hungry1968 - always use Mr. Zip with your address...

1600 Pennsylvania Ave.
Washington, DC 20500-0001

Posted by IOWEIGN at 11:05 PM : Jul 09, 2008
+ report abuse

******

well you have the address..what are you waiting for??? to grow some balls?? all talk...
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