A secret history of the United States government’s Nazi-hunting operation concludes that American intelligence officials created a “safe haven” in the United States for Nazis and their collaborators after World War II, and it details decades of clashes, often hidden, with other nations over war criminals here and abroad.

The 600-page report, which the Justice Department has tried to keep secret for four years, provides new evidence about more than two dozen of the most notorious Nazi cases of the last three decades.

It describes the government’s posthumous pursuit of Dr. Josef Mengele, the so-called Angel of Death at Auschwitz, part of whose scalp was kept in a Justice Department official’s drawer; the vigilante killing of a former Waffen SS soldier in New Jersey; and the government’s mistaken identification of the Treblinka concentration camp guard known as Ivan the Terrible.

The report catalogs both the successes and failures of the band of lawyers, historians and investigators at the Justice Department’s Office of Special Investigations, which was created in 1979 to deport Nazis.

Perhaps the report’s most damning disclosures come in assessing the Central Intelligence Agency’s involvement with Nazi émigrés.

Documents Shed Light on C.I.A.'s Use of Ex-Nazis - The New York Times

 

Scholars and previous government reports had acknowledged the C.I.A.’s use of Nazis for postwar intelligence purposes.

CIA's Support to the Nazi War Criminal Investigations (Ruffner)


But this report goes further in documenting the level of American complicity and deception in such operations.

The Justice Department report, describing what it calls,

The report also documents divisions within the government over the effort and the legal pitfalls in relying on testimony from Holocaust survivors that was decades old.

 

The report also concluded that the number of Nazis who made it into the United States was almost certainly much smaller than 10,000, the figure widely cited by government officials.

The Justice Department has resisted making the report public since 2006.

Under the threat of a lawsuit, it turned over a heavily redacted version last month to a private research group, the National Security Archive, but even then, many of the most legally and diplomatically sensitive portions were omitted.

In Hunt for Nazis, an Incomplete History - Interactive - NYTimes.com

 

A complete version was obtained by The New York Times.

The Justice Department said the report, the product of six years of work, was never formally completed and did not represent its official findings.

It cited,

but declined to say what they were.

More than 300 Nazi persecutors have been deported, stripped of citizenship or blocked from entering the United States since the creation of the O.S.I., which was merged with another unit this year.

Criminal Division | About the Section

Otto Albrecht Alfred von Bolschwing (15 October 1909 – 7 March 1982) was a German SS-Hauptsturmführer, intelligence officer and international businessman. During the Nazi-era and World War II, he served as an operative of the Sicherheitsdienst (SD) in Mandatory Palestine and Romania, where he was involved in instigating the Legionnaires' Rebellion and the Bucharest Pogrom in 1941. Von Bolschwing worked as a consultant to the Office of Jewish Affairs (Judenreferat) from 1936-39. He specialized in the expropriation of Jewish property and also served as an advisor to Adolf Eichmann. In 1945, he abandoned his prior allegiance to Nazi Germany and joined the Austrian Resistance.  During the early years of the Cold War, von Bolschwing continued to work as an intelligence agent in Central and Southeastern Europe, first for the Gehlen Organization and later for the CIA. With the complicity of the US government, von Bolschwing emigrated to the United States in 1954, where he embarked on a successful career as a corporate executive and eventually obtained US citizenship in 1959. His prior Nazi-affiliations and suspected involvement in war crimes were later uncovered by the US Justice Department and he was forced to surrender his American citizenship in 1981.

In chronicling the cases of Nazis who were aided by American intelligence officials, the report cites help that C.I.A. officials provided in 1954 to Otto Von Bolschwing, an associate of Adolf Eichmann who had helped develop the initial plans,

and who later worked for the C.I.A. in the United States.

STUDIES IN INTELLIGENCE NAZI - RELATED ARTICLES_0014.pdf

OTTO WON BOLSCHWING; EX-CAPTAIN IN NAZI SS

Alex Constantine's Blacklist: Waffen SS Official Otto von Bolschwing and the Creation of Israel, Connections to Iran Contra & Place in San Francisco Politics

 

In a chain of memos, C.I.A. officials debated what to do if Von Bolschwing were confronted about his past - whether to deny any Nazi affiliation or,

The Justice Department, after learning of Von Bolschwing’s Nazi ties, sought to deport him in 1981.

He died that year at age 72.

The report also examines the case of Arthur L. Rudolph, a Nazi scientist who ran the Mittelwerk munitions factory.

Arthur Louis Hugo Rudolph (November 9, 1906 – January 1, 1996) was a German rocket engineer who was a leader of the effort to develop the V-2 rocket for Nazi Germany. After World War II, the United States government's Office of Strategic Services (OSS) brought him to the U.S. as part of the clandestine Operation Paperclip, where he became one of the main developers of the U.S. space program. He worked within the U.S. Army and NASA, where he managed the development of several systems, including the Pershing missile and the Saturn V Moon rocket. In 1984, the U.S. government investigated him for war crimes, and he agreed to renounce his United States citizenship and leave the U.S. in return for not being prosecuted.

He was brought to the United States in 1945 for his rocket-making expertise under Operation Paperclip, an American program that recruited scientists who had worked in Nazi Germany.

Project Paperclip – Library of Rick and RIA (RARE Information Access)

(Rudolph has been honored by NASA and is credited as the father of the Saturn V rocket.)

The report cites a 1949 memo from the Justice Department’s No. 2 official urging immigration officers to let Rudolph back in the country after a stay in Mexico, saying that a failure to do so,

Justice Department investigators later found evidence that Rudolph was much more actively involved in exploiting slave laborers at Mittelwerk than he or American intelligence officials had acknowledged, the report says.

War-Crime Charges Haunt Scientist - The New York Times

Some intelligence officials objected when the Justice Department sought to deport him in 1983, but the O.S.I. considered the deportation of someone of Rudolph’s prominence as an affirmation of,

according to internal memos.

The Justice Department itself sometimes concealed what American officials knew about Nazis in this country, the report found.

In 1980, prosecutors filed a motion that,

in asserting that checks of C.I.A. and F.B.I. records revealed no information on the Nazi past of Tscherim Soobzokov, a former Waffen SS soldier.

 

In fact, the report said, the Justice Department,

(After the case was dismissed, radical Jewish groups urged violence against Mr. Soobzokov, and he was killed in 1985 by a bomb at his home in Paterson, N.J.)

MAN ACCUSED ON NAZI PAST INJURED BY BOMB IN JERSEY - The New York Times

The secrecy surrounding the Justice Department’s handling of the report could pose a political dilemma for President Obama because of his pledge to run the most "transparent" administration in history.

Barack Hussein Obama III (born August 4, 1961) is an American lawyer and politician who served as the 44th president of the United States from 2009 to 2017. A member of the Democratic Party, he was the first African-American president in U.S. history. Obama previously served as a U.S. senator representing Illinois from 2005 to 2008 and as an Illinois state senator from 1997 to 2004.  Obama was born in Honolulu, Hawaii. He graduated from Columbia University in 1983 with a Bachelor of Arts degree in political science and later worked as a community organizer in Chicago. In 1988, Obama enrolled in Harvard Law School, where he was the first black president of the Harvard Law Review. He became a civil rights attorney and an academic, teaching constitutional law at the University of Chicago Law School from 1992 to 2004. In 1996, Obama was elected to represent the 13th district in the Illinois Senate, a position he held until 2004, when he successfully ran for the U.S. Senate. In the 2008 presidential election, after a close primary campaign against Hillary Clinton, he was nominated by the Democratic Party for president. Obama selected Joe Biden as his running mate and defeated Republican nominee John McCain.  Obama was awarded the 2009 Nobel Peace Prize, a decision that drew both criticism and praise. His first-term actions addressed the 2007–2008 financial crisis and included the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009, a major stimulus package to guide the economy in recovering from the Great Recession; a partial extension of the Bush tax cuts; legislation to reform health care; the Dodd–Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act, a major financial regulation reform bill; and the end of the Iraq War. Obama also appointed Supreme Court justices Sonia Sotomayor and Elena Kagan, the former being the first Hispanic American on the Supreme Court. He ordered Operation Neptune Spear, the raid that killed Osama bin Laden, who was responsible for the September 11 attacks. Obama downplayed Bush's counterinsurgency model, expanding air strikes and making extensive use of special forces, while encouraging greater reliance on host-government militaries. He also ordered the 2011 military intervention in Libya to implement United Nations Security Council Resolution 1973, contributing to the overthrow of Muammar Gaddafi.  Obama defeated Republican opponent Mitt Romney in the 2012 presidential election. In his second term, Obama took steps to combat climate change, signing the Paris Agreement, a major international climate agreement, and an executive order to limit carbon emissions. Obama also presided over the implementation of the Affordable Care Act and other legislation passed in his first term. He negotiated the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action, a nuclear agreement with Iran, and normalized relations with Cuba. The number of American soldiers in Afghanistan decreased during Obama's second term, though U.S. soldiers remained in the country throughout the remainder of his presidency. Obama promoted inclusion for LGBT Americans, becoming the first sitting U.S. president to publicly support same-sex marriage.  Obama left office in 2017 with high approval ratings both within the United States and among foreign advisories. He continues to reside in Washington D.C. and remains politically active, campaigning for candidates in various American elections, including Biden's successful presidential bid in 2020. Outside of politics, Obama has published three books: Dreams from My Father (1995), The Audacity of Hope (2006), and A Promised Land (2020). His presidential library began construction in the South Side of Chicago in 2021. Historians and political scientists rank Obama among the upper tier in historical rankings of American presidents.

Mr. Obama chose the Justice Department to coordinate the opening of government records.

Obama’s Genealogy & so much more – Library of Rick and RIA (RARE Information Access)

The Nazi-hunting report was the brainchild of Mark Richard, a senior Justice Department lawyer.

Mark Richard | Hoover Institution

Janet Wood Reno (July 21, 1938 – November 7, 2016) was an American lawyer and public official who served as the first female and 78th United States Attorney General. Reno, a member of the Democratic Party, held the position from 1993 to 2001, making her the second-longest serving attorney general, behind only William Wirt.  Reno was born and raised in Miami, Florida. After leaving to attend Cornell University and Harvard Law School, she returned to Miami where she started her career at private law firms. Her first foray into government was as a staff member for the Judiciary Committee of the Florida House of Representatives. She then worked for the Dade County State Attorney's Office before returning to private practice. She was elected to the Office of State Attorney five times and was the first woman to serve as a state attorney in Florida. President Bill Clinton appointed her attorney general in 1993, a position she held until Clinton left office in 2001.

In 1999, he persuaded Attorney General Janet Reno to begin a detailed look at what he saw as a critical piece of history, and he assigned a career prosecutor, Judith Feigin, to the job.

Biographical Sketch of Judith Feigin- Historical Society of the D.C. Circuit

 

After Mr. Richard edited the final version in 2006, he urged senior officials to make it public but was rebuffed, colleagues said.

When Mr. Richard became ill with cancer, he told a gathering of friends and family that the report’s publication was one of three things he hoped to see before he died, the colleagues said.

 

He died in June 2009, and Attorney General Eric H. Holder Jr. spoke at his funeral.

Eric Himpton Holder Jr. (born January 21, 1951) is an American lawyer who served as the 82nd United States attorney general from 2009 to 2015. A member of the Democratic Party, Holder was the first African American to hold the position. Born in New York City to a middle-class family of Bajan origin, Holder graduated from Stuyvesant High School, Columbia College, and Columbia Law School. Following law school, he worked for the Public Integrity Section of the U.S. Department of Justice for twelve years. He next served as a judge of the Superior Court of the District of Columbia before being appointed by President Bill Clinton as U.S. attorney for the District of Columbia and subsequently U.S. deputy attorney general.  Holder prosecuted cases involving government corruption. While U.S. attorney, he prosecuted congressman Dan Rostenkowski for corruption charges related to his role in the Congressional Post Office scandal. Following the Clinton administration, he worked at Covington & Burling, representing the firm's multinational corporate clients in litigation. Holder was senior legal advisor to Barack Obama during his 2008 presidential campaign and one of three members of his vice-presidential selection committee. Holder was a close ally and confidante of Obama's and was selected as his first attorney general.  Holder became the first sitting attorney general to be held in contempt of Congress during an investigation of the Operation Fast and Furious ATF gunwalking scandal. The Justice Department's inspector general under Obama refused to prosecute him and later cleared him of the charges. After he was succeeded as attorney general by Loretta Lynch in April 2015, Holder returned to Covington & Burling, where he continues to practice corporate litigation, and is also involved with efforts at gerrymandering reform through the National Democratic Redistricting Committee.

After Mr. Richard’s death, David Sobel, a Washington lawyer, and the National Security Archive sued for the report’s release under the Freedom of Information Act.

The Justice Department initially fought the lawsuit, but finally gave Mr. Sobel a partial copy - with more than 1,000 passages and references deleted based on exemptions for privacy and internal deliberations.

Laura Sweeney, a Justice Department spokeswoman, said the department is committed to transparency, and that redactions are made by experienced lawyers.

The full report disclosed that the Justice Department found “a smoking gun” in 1997 establishing with “definitive proof” that Switzerland had bought gold from the Nazis that had been taken from Jewish victims of the Holocaust.

But these references are deleted, as are disputes between the Justice and State Departments over Switzerland’s culpability in the months leading up to a major report on the issue.

Another section describes as,

a series of meetings in 2000 that United States officials held with Latvian officials to pressure them to pursue suspected Nazis.

That passage is also deleted.

So too are references to macabre but little-known bits of history, including how a director of the O.S.I. kept a piece of scalp that was thought to belong to Dr. Mengele in his desk in hopes that it would help establish whether he was dead.

Josef Rudolf Mengele (German: [ˈjoːzɛf ˈmɛŋələ] ⓘ; 16 March 1911 – 7 February 1979) was a German Schutzstaffel (SS) officer and physician during World War II at the Russian front and then at Auschwitz during the Holocaust, where he was nicknamed the "Angel of Death" (German: Todesengel). He performed deadly experiments on prisoners at the Auschwitz II (Birkenau) concentration camp, where he was a member of the team of doctors who selected victims to be murdered in the gas chambers, and was one of the doctors who administered the gas.  Before the war, Mengele received doctorates in anthropology and medicine and began a career as a researcher. He joined the Nazi Party in 1937 and the SS in 1938. He was assigned as a battalion medical officer at the start of World War II, then transferred to the Nazi concentration camps service in early 1943 and assigned to Auschwitz, where he saw the opportunity to conduct genetic research on human subjects. His experiments focused primarily on twins, with no regard for the health or safety of the victims. With Red Army troops sweeping through German-occupied Poland, Mengele was transferred 280 kilometers (170 miles) from Auschwitz to the Gross-Rosen concentration camp on 17 January 1945, ten days before the arrival of the Soviet forces at Auschwitz.  After the war, Mengele fled to Argentina in July 1949, assisted by a network of former SS members. He initially lived in and around Buenos Aires, then fled to Paraguay in 1959 and Brazil in 1960, all while being sought by West Germany, Israel, and Nazi hunters such as Simon Wiesenthal, who wanted to bring him to trial. Mengele eluded capture in spite of extradition requests by the West German government and clandestine operations by the Israeli intelligence agency Mossad. He drowned in 1979 after suffering a heart attack while swimming off the coast of Bertioga and was buried under the false name of Wolfgang Gerhard. His remains were disinterred and positively identified by forensic examination in 1985.

The chapter on Dr. Mengele, one of the most notorious Nazis to escape prosecution, details the O.S.I.’s elaborate efforts in the mid-1980s to determine whether he had fled to the United States and might still be alive.

It describes how investigators used letters and diaries apparently written by Dr. Mengele in the 1970s, along with German dental records and Munich phone books, to follow his trail.

After the development of DNA tests, the piece of scalp, which had been turned over by the Brazilian authorities, proved to be a critical piece of evidence in establishing that Dr. Mengele had fled to Brazil and had died there in about 1979 without ever entering the United States, the report said.

U.S. Report on Mengele Reaffirms His Death - The New York Times

The edited report deletes references to Dr. Mengele’s scalp on privacy grounds.

Even documents that have long been available to the public are omitted, including court decisions, Congressional testimony and front-page newspaper articles from the 1970s.

A chapter on the O.S.I.’s most publicized failure - the case against John Demjanjuk, a retired American autoworker who was mistakenly identified as Treblinka’s Ivan the Terrible - deletes dozens of details, including part of a 1993 ruling by the United States Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit that raised ethics accusations against Justice Department officials.

John Demjanjuk (born Ivan Mykolaiovych Demjanjuk; 3 April 1920 – 17 March 2012) was a Trawniki man and Nazi camp guard at Sobibor extermination camp, Majdanek, and Flossenbürg. Demjanjuk became the center of global media attention in the 1980s, when he was tried and convicted in Israel after being misidentified as "Ivan the Terrible", a notoriously cruel watchman at Treblinka extermination camp. In 1993 the verdict was overturned. Shortly before his death, he was tried and convicted in the Federal Republic of Germany as an accessory to the 28,060 murders that occurred during his service at Sobibor.  Born in Soviet Ukraine, Demjanjuk survived the Holodomor as a child and was conscripted into the Red Army in 1940. He fought in World War II and was taken prisoner by the Germans in spring 1942. He was recruited by the Germans and trained at Trawniki concentration camp, going on to serve at Sobibor extermination camp and at least two concentration camps. After the war he married a woman he met in a West German displaced persons camp, and emigrated with her and their daughter to the United States.[3] They settled in Seven Hills, Ohio, where he worked in an auto factory and raised three children. Demjanjuk became a US citizen in 1958.  In 1977, Demjanjuk was accused of having been a Trawniki man. Based on eyewitness testimony by Holocaust survivors in Israel, he was misidentified as the notorious Ivan the Terrible from Treblinka. Demjanjuk was extradited to Israel in 1986 for trial. In 1988, Demjanjuk was convicted and sentenced to death. He maintained his innocence, claiming that it was a case of mistaken identity. In 1993 the verdict was overturned by the Israeli Supreme Court, based on new evidence that cast reasonable doubt over his identity as Ivan the Terrible. Although the judges agreed that there was sufficient evidence to show that Demjanjuk had served at Sobibor, Israel declined to prosecute. In September 1993 Demjanjuk was allowed to return to Ohio. In 1999, US prosecutors again sought to deport Demjanjuk for having been a concentration camp guard, and his citizenship was revoked in 2002.[3] In 2009, Germany requested his extradition for over 27,900 counts of acting as an accessory to murder: one for each person killed at Sobibor during the time when he was alleged to have served there as a guard. He was deported from the US to Germany in that same year. In 2011, he was convicted and sentenced to five years in prison.  According to legal scholar Lawrence Douglas, in spite of serious missteps along the way, the German verdict brought the case "to a worthy and just conclusion." After the conviction, Demjanjuk was released pending appeal. He lived at a German nursing home in Bad Feilnbach, where he died in 2012. Having died before a final judgment on his appeal could be issued, under German law, Demjanjuk remains technically innocent. In 2020, a photograph album by Sobibor guard Johann Niemann was made public; some historians have suggested that a guard who appears in two photos may have been Demjanjuk.

That section also omits a passage disclosing that Latvian émigrés sympathetic to Mr. Demjanjuk secretly arranged for the O.S.I.’s trash to be delivered to them each day from 1985 to 1987.

 

The émigrés rifled through the garbage to find classified documents that could help Mr. Demjanjuk, who is currently standing trial in Munich on separate war crimes charges.

Man Tied to Death Camp Goes on Trial in Germany - NYTimes.com

Ms. Feigin said she was baffled by the Justice Department’s attempt to keep a central part of its history secret for so long.