Walter Rauff
Encyclopedia
Walter Rauff was an SS officer in Nazi
Germany
, attaining the grade of Colonel (Standartenführer
) in June 1944. From January 1938 he was an aide of Reinhard Heydrich
firstly in the Sicherheitsdienst
or SD, the SS security service, later in the Reichssicherheitshauptamt or RSHA
, the Reich Security Main Office, a department created by Himmler in 1939 grouping the Gestapo
, SD and Kripo, the criminal police. Between 1958 and 1962 he worked for the Bundesnachrichtendienst
, West Germany
's intelligence service.
Rauff is thought to be responsible for nearly 100,000 deaths during the Second World War. In the late 1970s and early '80s, he was arguably the most wanted Nazi fugitive still alive.
file on Walter Rauff released in 2005:
During his thirteen years in the Navy, Rauff became acquainted with Reinhard Heydrich
, and saw service in South America
and Spain
, as a young officer in 1924.
Between 1940 and 1941 Rauff went back to the Navy as a volunteer, commanding a mine sweeper flotilla in the English Channel. He was promoted Lieutenant Commander (Korvettenkapitän) in April 1941, shortly before he was discharged from active service, he then returned to the Reich Security Main Office (RSHA). During early 1940 he headed the SD in German occupied Norway.
s, mobile gas chambers used to fatally poison Jews
, disabled people, communists and others who were considered by the SS to be enemies of the German State. According to declassified C.I.A. documents:
The MI5 file is more explicit concerning Rauff's "technical" skills:
In 1972, in Santiago de Chile, Rauff made a deposition as a witness before a German prosecutor. On the subject of the extermination of Jews in Poland and Russia, asked whether at that time he had any doubts concerning the use of gas vans, Rauff answered:
Rauff delegated the task of keeping the gas vans operating in the Soviet Union and other Nazi-occupied areas to an SS chemist, August Becker
. Becker kept Rauff fully informed on the gas van killing operations.
during 1942 and 1943, as part of the Nazis' long-term aim to export the Jewish Holocaust to the Near and Middle East
(including the British Mandate of Palestine, British-occupied Iraq
, French-occupied Syria
, the Lebanon
, Egypt
, and Libya
), and capture the region’s petroleum
fields.
A month after German Field Marshal Erwin Rommel
’s defeat of the British at Tobruk
in June 1942, the SS set up a special extermination unit to follow in the wake of Rommel’s Afrika Korps
. The unit was commanded by Rauff who was empowered to carry out "executive measures on the civilian population", the Nazi euphemism for mass murder and enslavement.
According to a 2007 German national television series, "Rauff’s mission to exterminate the Middle East's Jewish population was brought to an abrupt halt by the British 8th Army
's defeat of Rommel at El Alamein
in October 1942. Rommel was forced to withdraw the remnants of his army to Tunisia
, where it sustained a bridgehead until May 1943, enabling Rauff's SS to start the persecutions locally. The MI5 file records that Rauff was posted to Tunis
in 1942 as head of the Sicherheitsdienst, where he led an Einsatzkommando
(an SS task force) which conducted a "well-organised persecution campaign against the country's Jews and Partisans
". The Jewish community was particularly hard hit:
in 1943 where he took charge of all Gestapo and Sicherheitsdienst operations throughout northwest Italy. The MI5 file states:
Rauff remained in Italy until the end of the war. The MI5 file states:
According to Rauff's declassified C.I.A. file:
n intelligence and went to Damascus
where he served as military adviser to President Hosni Zaim, only to fall out of favor after a coup there a year later. According to one report, he tortured Jews in Syria. He and his family then settled in Ecuador
, later shifting to Chile
."
After barely escaping from Syria, Rauff fled to Lebanon
and later back to Italy, where he gained a transit pass for Ecuador.
Before sailing for Ecuador (December 1949), Rauff is said to have worked for a while with Israeli intelligence. In 1949 Israeli secret agent Edmond "Ted" Cross wanted to send Rauff to Egypt. The idea was the utilization of former Nazi elements for observation and penetration in the Arab countries. This attempt having failed, Edmond Cross also helped Rauff to get the necessary papers for immigration to South America
After settling in Chile in 1958, Rauff worked as the manager of a king crab cannery in Punta Arenas, one of the southernmost towns in the world.
From 1959 to 1963 Rauff earned 70.000 Deutsche Marks from the West-German Bundesnachrichtendienst and he was warned (and removed from the BND) before his detention in Chile. He subsequently partially recovered the lawyer's fees from the BND. He had to build a spy network in South America. He was evaluated as "untrustworthy" (charakterlich äußerst unzuverlässig), "intriguer" (er konspirierte nach allen Seiten) and drunkard (eng mit dem Alkohol befreundet).
In 1972 he confessed that in 1960 and/or 1962 he had been in Germany. He was arrested by the Chilean authorities in December 1962 after Germany requested his extradition, but was freed by Chile's Supreme Court
five months later in 1963. Salvador Allende
's election as Chilean president in 1970 did not change the situation. In a friendly letter to Nazi hunter Simon Wiesenthal
Allende wrote that he could not reverse the Supreme Court's 1963 decision.
Under Augusto Pinochet
's regime, Rauff may have served as an advisor in Chilean intelligence, DINA. Allegedly, C.I.A. officials could not determine Rauff's exact position. General Pinochet's government resisted all calls for his extradition to stand trial in West Germany or Israel. In the meantime Rauff disappeared and was discovered by the documentary filmmaker William Bemister
in Los Pozos, Santiago de Chile, in 1979, and interviewed. This interview was included in the Emmy-winning film "The Hunter and the Hunted" and shown on Public Broadcasting Service
(PBS) Public television in the United States on October 21, 1981.
The last request to extradite Rauff to West Germany was presented by renowned Nazi hunter Beate Klarsfeld in 1983, but was flatly rejected by the Pinochet government, which alleged that Rauff had been a peaceful Chilean citizen for over 20 years and that the case was closed since the Supreme Court's 1963 decision. The authorities instead arrested Klarsfeld twice in Santiago de Chile. Following her brief detention, the Israeli government's foreign affairs director, David Kimche, officially requested Rauff's outright expulsion in a meeting with Chilean Foreign Minister Jaime del Valle, but the request was turned down.
Nazism
Nazism, the common short form name of National Socialism was the ideology and practice of the Nazi Party and of Nazi Germany...
Germany
Germany
Germany , officially the Federal Republic of Germany , is a federal parliamentary republic in Europe. The country consists of 16 states while the capital and largest city is Berlin. Germany covers an area of 357,021 km2 and has a largely temperate seasonal climate...
, attaining the grade of Colonel (Standartenführer
Standartenführer
Standartenführer was a Nazi Party paramilitary rank that was used in the so-called Nazi combat-organisations: SA, SS, NSKK and the NSFK...
) in June 1944. From January 1938 he was an aide of Reinhard Heydrich
Reinhard Heydrich
Reinhard Tristan Eugen Heydrich , also known as The Hangman, was a high-ranking German Nazi official.He was SS-Obergruppenführer and General der Polizei, chief of the Reich Main Security Office and Stellvertretender Reichsprotektor of Bohemia and Moravia...
firstly in the Sicherheitsdienst
Sicherheitsdienst
Sicherheitsdienst , full title Sicherheitsdienst des Reichsführers-SS, or SD, was the intelligence agency of the SS and the Nazi Party in Nazi Germany. The organization was the first Nazi Party intelligence organization to be established and was often considered a "sister organization" with the...
or SD, the SS security service, later in the Reichssicherheitshauptamt or RSHA
RSHA
The RSHA, or Reichssicherheitshauptamt was an organization subordinate to Heinrich Himmler in his dual capacities as Chef der Deutschen Polizei and Reichsführer-SS...
, the Reich Security Main Office, a department created by Himmler in 1939 grouping the Gestapo
Gestapo
The Gestapo was the official secret police of Nazi Germany. Beginning on 20 April 1934, it was under the administration of the SS leader Heinrich Himmler in his position as Chief of German Police...
, SD and Kripo, the criminal police. Between 1958 and 1962 he worked for the Bundesnachrichtendienst
Bundesnachrichtendienst
The Bundesnachrichtendienst [ˌbʊndəsˈnaːχʁɪçtnˌdiːnst] is the foreign intelligence agency of Germany, directly subordinated to the Chancellor's Office. Its headquarters are in Pullach near Munich, and Berlin . The BND has 300 locations in Germany and foreign countries...
, West Germany
West Germany
West Germany is the common English, but not official, name for the Federal Republic of Germany or FRG in the period between its creation in May 1949 to German reunification on 3 October 1990....
's intelligence service.
Rauff is thought to be responsible for nearly 100,000 deaths during the Second World War. In the late 1970s and early '80s, he was arguably the most wanted Nazi fugitive still alive.
From the Navy to the SS
According to the MI5MI5
The Security Service, commonly known as MI5 , is the United Kingdom's internal counter-intelligence and security agency and is part of its core intelligence machinery alongside the Secret Intelligence Service focused on foreign threats, Government Communications Headquarters and the Defence...
file on Walter Rauff released in 2005:
- "Rauff joined the Reichsmarine (the German Navy) in 1924 as a young cadet. After a period of training as a midshipman he was promoted to Lieutenant in 1936 and given command of a minesweeper. He was a friend of Reinhard Heydrich, who also served in the Navy in the 1920s. Heydrich was hired by SS chief Heinrich Himmler in 1931 to serve as the head of the SS counter-intelligence system, and when Rauff resigned from the Navy in 1937, Heydrich took him under his wing. Rauff was given the job of putting the SS and its security service, the Sicherheitsdienst, onto a war footing."
During his thirteen years in the Navy, Rauff became acquainted with Reinhard Heydrich
Reinhard Heydrich
Reinhard Tristan Eugen Heydrich , also known as The Hangman, was a high-ranking German Nazi official.He was SS-Obergruppenführer and General der Polizei, chief of the Reich Main Security Office and Stellvertretender Reichsprotektor of Bohemia and Moravia...
, and saw service in South America
South America
South America is a continent situated in the Western Hemisphere, mostly in the Southern Hemisphere, with a relatively small portion in the Northern Hemisphere. The continent is also considered a subcontinent of the Americas. It is bordered on the west by the Pacific Ocean and on the north and east...
and Spain
Spain
Spain , officially the Kingdom of Spain languages]] under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages. In each of these, Spain's official name is as follows:;;;;;;), is a country and member state of the European Union located in southwestern Europe on the Iberian Peninsula...
, as a young officer in 1924.
Between 1940 and 1941 Rauff went back to the Navy as a volunteer, commanding a mine sweeper flotilla in the English Channel. He was promoted Lieutenant Commander (Korvettenkapitän) in April 1941, shortly before he was discharged from active service, he then returned to the Reich Security Main Office (RSHA). During early 1940 he headed the SD in German occupied Norway.
Gas van engineering
In 1941-1942 Rauff was involved in the development of gas vanGas van
The gas van or gas wagon was an extermination method devised by Nazi Germany to kill victims of the regime. It was also rumored that analog of such device was used by the Soviet Union on an experimental basis during the Great Purge-Nazi Germany:...
s, mobile gas chambers used to fatally poison Jews
Jews
The Jews , also known as the Jewish people, are a nation and ethnoreligious group originating in the Israelites or Hebrews of the Ancient Near East. The Jewish ethnicity, nationality, and religion are strongly interrelated, as Judaism is the traditional faith of the Jewish nation...
, disabled people, communists and others who were considered by the SS to be enemies of the German State. According to declassified C.I.A. documents:
- "As an official of the Criminal Technical Institute of the Reich Security Main Office, Rauff designed gas vans used to murder Jews and persons with disabilities."
The MI5 file is more explicit concerning Rauff's "technical" skills:
- "Rauff supervised the modification of scores of trucks, with the assistance of a Berlin chassis builder, to divert their exhaust fumes into airtight chambers in the back of the vehicles. The victims were then poisoned and / or asphyxiated from the carbon monoxide accumulating within the truck compartment as the vehicle travelled to a burial site. The trucks could carry between 25 and 60 people at a time."
In 1972, in Santiago de Chile, Rauff made a deposition as a witness before a German prosecutor. On the subject of the extermination of Jews in Poland and Russia, asked whether at that time he had any doubts concerning the use of gas vans, Rauff answered:
- "I cannot say. The main issue for me at the time was that the shootings were a considerable burden for the men who were in charge thereof and that this burden was taken off them through the use of the gas vans."
Rauff delegated the task of keeping the gas vans operating in the Soviet Union and other Nazi-occupied areas to an SS chemist, August Becker
August Becker
August Becker was during the Nazi regime in Germany an SS lieutenant colonel and chemist in the Central Reich Security Office...
. Becker kept Rauff fully informed on the gas van killing operations.
Persecution in North Africa
Rauff was later involved in the persecution of Jews in North AfricaNorth Africa
North Africa or Northern Africa is the northernmost region of the African continent, linked by the Sahara to Sub-Saharan Africa. Geopolitically, the United Nations definition of Northern Africa includes eight countries or territories; Algeria, Egypt, Libya, Morocco, South Sudan, Sudan, Tunisia, and...
during 1942 and 1943, as part of the Nazis' long-term aim to export the Jewish Holocaust to the Near and Middle East
Middle East
The Middle East is a region that encompasses Western Asia and Northern Africa. It is often used as a synonym for Near East, in opposition to Far East...
(including the British Mandate of Palestine, British-occupied Iraq
Iraq
Iraq ; officially the Republic of Iraq is a country in Western Asia spanning most of the northwestern end of the Zagros mountain range, the eastern part of the Syrian Desert and the northern part of the Arabian Desert....
, French-occupied Syria
Syria
Syria , officially the Syrian Arab Republic , is a country in Western Asia, bordering Lebanon and the Mediterranean Sea to the West, Turkey to the north, Iraq to the east, Jordan to the south, and Israel to the southwest....
, the Lebanon
Lebanon
Lebanon , officially the Republic of LebanonRepublic of Lebanon is the most common term used by Lebanese government agencies. The term Lebanese Republic, a literal translation of the official Arabic and French names that is not used in today's world. Arabic is the most common language spoken among...
, Egypt
Egypt
Egypt , officially the Arab Republic of Egypt, Arabic: , is a country mainly in North Africa, with the Sinai Peninsula forming a land bridge in Southwest Asia. Egypt is thus a transcontinental country, and a major power in Africa, the Mediterranean Basin, the Middle East and the Muslim world...
, and Libya
Libya
Libya is an African country in the Maghreb region of North Africa bordered by the Mediterranean Sea to the north, Egypt to the east, Sudan to the southeast, Chad and Niger to the south, and Algeria and Tunisia to the west....
), and capture the region’s petroleum
Petroleum
Petroleum or crude oil is a naturally occurring, flammable liquid consisting of a complex mixture of hydrocarbons of various molecular weights and other liquid organic compounds, that are found in geologic formations beneath the Earth's surface. Petroleum is recovered mostly through oil drilling...
fields.
A month after German Field Marshal Erwin Rommel
Erwin Rommel
Erwin Johannes Eugen Rommel , popularly known as the Desert Fox , was a German Field Marshal of World War II. He won the respect of both his own troops and the enemies he fought....
’s defeat of the British at Tobruk
Tobruk
Tobruk or Tubruq is a city, seaport, and peninsula on Libya's eastern Mediterranean coast, near the border with Egypt. It is the capital of the Butnan District and has a population of 120,000 ....
in June 1942, the SS set up a special extermination unit to follow in the wake of Rommel’s Afrika Korps
Afrika Korps
The German Africa Corps , or the Afrika Korps as it was popularly called, was the German expeditionary force in Libya and Tunisia during the North African Campaign of World War II...
. The unit was commanded by Rauff who was empowered to carry out "executive measures on the civilian population", the Nazi euphemism for mass murder and enslavement.
According to a 2007 German national television series, "Rauff’s mission to exterminate the Middle East's Jewish population was brought to an abrupt halt by the British 8th Army
Eighth Army (United Kingdom)
The Eighth Army was one of the best-known formations of the British Army during World War II, fighting in the North African and Italian campaigns....
's defeat of Rommel at El Alamein
El Alamein
El Alamein is a town in the northern Matrouh Governorate of Egypt. Located on the Mediterranean Sea, it lies west of Alexandria and northwest of Cairo. As of 2007, it has a local population of 7,397 inhabitants.- Climate :...
in October 1942. Rommel was forced to withdraw the remnants of his army to Tunisia
Tunisia
Tunisia , officially the Tunisian RepublicThe long name of Tunisia in other languages used in the country is: , is the northernmost country in Africa. It is a Maghreb country and is bordered by Algeria to the west, Libya to the southeast, and the Mediterranean Sea to the north and east. Its area...
, where it sustained a bridgehead until May 1943, enabling Rauff's SS to start the persecutions locally. The MI5 file records that Rauff was posted to Tunis
Tunis
Tunis is the capital of both the Tunisian Republic and the Tunis Governorate. It is Tunisia's largest city, with a population of 728,453 as of 2004; the greater metropolitan area holds some 2,412,500 inhabitants....
in 1942 as head of the Sicherheitsdienst, where he led an Einsatzkommando
Einsatzkommando
During World War II, the Nazi German Einsatzkommandos were a sub-group of five Einsatzgruppen mobile killing squads—up to 3,000 men each—usually composed of 500-1,000 functionaries of the SS and Gestapo, whose mission was to kill Jews, Romani, communists and the NKVD collaborators in the captured...
(an SS task force) which conducted a "well-organised persecution campaign against the country's Jews and Partisans
Partisan (military)
A partisan is a member of an irregular military force formed to oppose control of an area by a foreign power or by an army of occupation by some kind of insurgent activity...
". The Jewish community was particularly hard hit:
- "More than 2,500 Tunisian Jews died in a network of SS slave labour camps before the Germans withdrew. Rauff's men also stole jewels, silver, gold and religious artifacts from the Tunisian Jews. Forty-three kilogrammes of gold were taken from the Jewish community on the island of Djerba alone."
Secret police boss in Northern Italy
Rauff was then sent to MilanMilan
Milan is the second-largest city in Italy and the capital city of the region of Lombardy and of the province of Milan. The city proper has a population of about 1.3 million, while its urban area, roughly coinciding with its administrative province and the bordering Province of Monza and Brianza ,...
in 1943 where he took charge of all Gestapo and Sicherheitsdienst operations throughout northwest Italy. The MI5 file states:
- "In both these postings [Tunisia and northern Italy] Rauff rapidly gained a reputation for utter ruthlessness. In Tunis he was responsible for the indiscriminate execution of both Jews and local Partisans. His work in Italy involved imposing total German control on Milan, TurinTurinTurin is a city and major business and cultural centre in northern Italy, capital of the Piedmont region, located mainly on the left bank of the Po River and surrounded by the Alpine arch. The population of the city proper is 909,193 while the population of the urban area is estimated by Eurostat...
and GenoaGenoaGenoa |Ligurian]] Zena ; Latin and, archaically, English Genua) is a city and an important seaport in northern Italy, the capital of the Province of Genoa and of the region of Liguria....
. His success in this task earned him the congratulations of his SS superior, who described it as 'a superb achievement'".
Rauff remained in Italy until the end of the war. The MI5 file states:
- "He narrowly avoided being lynched by an Italian mob, having barricaded himself and a number of other SS officers into the Hotel Regina in Milan. He was arrested by Allied troops and sent to a prisoner of war camp."
According to Rauff's declassified C.I.A. file:
- "Near the end of the war Rauff, then the senior SS and police official in northern Italy, tried to gain credit for the surrender of German forces in Italy, but ended up only surrendering himself. After escaping from an American internment camp in RiminiRiminiRimini is a medium-sized city of 142,579 inhabitants in the Emilia-Romagna region of Italy, and capital city of the Province of Rimini. It is located on the Adriatic Sea, on the coast between the rivers Marecchia and Ausa...
, Rauff hid in a number of Italian convents, apparently under the protection of Bishop Alois HudalAlois HudalAlois Hudal was a Rome-based bishop of Austrian descent. He was for thirty years head of the small Austrian-German congregation of Santa Maria dell'Anima in Rome and until 1937, an influential representative of the Austrian Church...
" .
Spy officer in the Middle East
In 1948 he was recruited by SyriaSyria
Syria , officially the Syrian Arab Republic , is a country in Western Asia, bordering Lebanon and the Mediterranean Sea to the West, Turkey to the north, Iraq to the east, Jordan to the south, and Israel to the southwest....
n intelligence and went to Damascus
Damascus
Damascus , commonly known in Syria as Al Sham , and as the City of Jasmine , is the capital and the second largest city of Syria after Aleppo, both are part of the country's 14 governorates. In addition to being one of the oldest continuously inhabited cities in the world, Damascus is a major...
where he served as military adviser to President Hosni Zaim, only to fall out of favor after a coup there a year later. According to one report, he tortured Jews in Syria. He and his family then settled in Ecuador
Ecuador
Ecuador , officially the Republic of Ecuador is a representative democratic republic in South America, bordered by Colombia on the north, Peru on the east and south, and by the Pacific Ocean to the west. It is one of only two countries in South America, along with Chile, that do not have a border...
, later shifting to Chile
Chile
Chile ,officially the Republic of Chile , is a country in South America occupying a long, narrow coastal strip between the Andes mountains to the east and the Pacific Ocean to the west. It borders Peru to the north, Bolivia to the northeast, Argentina to the east, and the Drake Passage in the far...
."
After barely escaping from Syria, Rauff fled to Lebanon
Lebanon
Lebanon , officially the Republic of LebanonRepublic of Lebanon is the most common term used by Lebanese government agencies. The term Lebanese Republic, a literal translation of the official Arabic and French names that is not used in today's world. Arabic is the most common language spoken among...
and later back to Italy, where he gained a transit pass for Ecuador.
Before sailing for Ecuador (December 1949), Rauff is said to have worked for a while with Israeli intelligence. In 1949 Israeli secret agent Edmond "Ted" Cross wanted to send Rauff to Egypt. The idea was the utilization of former Nazi elements for observation and penetration in the Arab countries. This attempt having failed, Edmond Cross also helped Rauff to get the necessary papers for immigration to South America
Final refuge in Chile
From 1959 to 1963 Rauff earned 70.000 Deutsche Marks from the West-German Bundesnachrichtendienst and he was warned (and removed from the BND) before his detention in Chile. He subsequently partially recovered the lawyer's fees from the BND. He had to build a spy network in South America. He was evaluated as "untrustworthy" (charakterlich äußerst unzuverlässig), "intriguer" (er konspirierte nach allen Seiten) and drunkard (eng mit dem Alkohol befreundet).
In 1972 he confessed that in 1960 and/or 1962 he had been in Germany. He was arrested by the Chilean authorities in December 1962 after Germany requested his extradition, but was freed by Chile's Supreme Court
Supreme court
A supreme court is the highest court within the hierarchy of many legal jurisdictions. Other descriptions for such courts include court of last resort, instance court, judgment court, high court, or apex court...
five months later in 1963. Salvador Allende
Salvador Allende
Salvador Allende Gossens was a Chilean physician and politician who is generally considered the first democratically elected Marxist to become president of a country in Latin America....
's election as Chilean president in 1970 did not change the situation. In a friendly letter to Nazi hunter Simon Wiesenthal
Simon Wiesenthal
Simon Wiesenthal KBE was an Austrian Holocaust survivor who became famous after World War II for his work as a Nazi hunter....
Allende wrote that he could not reverse the Supreme Court's 1963 decision.
Under Augusto Pinochet
Augusto Pinochet
Augusto José Ramón Pinochet Ugarte, more commonly known as Augusto Pinochet , was a Chilean army general and dictator who assumed power in a coup d'état on 11 September 1973...
's regime, Rauff may have served as an advisor in Chilean intelligence, DINA. Allegedly, C.I.A. officials could not determine Rauff's exact position. General Pinochet's government resisted all calls for his extradition to stand trial in West Germany or Israel. In the meantime Rauff disappeared and was discovered by the documentary filmmaker William Bemister
William Bemister
William Bemister was a British documentary film maker and journalist.-Rhodesia:After brief service in the ranks with the regular British Army's Intelligence Corps, then the Corps' Territorial Army airborne unit, and the civil staff of the Metropolitan Police Commissioner's Office at New Scotland...
in Los Pozos, Santiago de Chile, in 1979, and interviewed. This interview was included in the Emmy-winning film "The Hunter and the Hunted" and shown on Public Broadcasting Service
Public Broadcasting Service
The Public Broadcasting Service is an American non-profit public broadcasting television network with 354 member TV stations in the United States which hold collective ownership. Its headquarters is in Arlington, Virginia....
(PBS) Public television in the United States on October 21, 1981.
The last request to extradite Rauff to West Germany was presented by renowned Nazi hunter Beate Klarsfeld in 1983, but was flatly rejected by the Pinochet government, which alleged that Rauff had been a peaceful Chilean citizen for over 20 years and that the case was closed since the Supreme Court's 1963 decision. The authorities instead arrested Klarsfeld twice in Santiago de Chile. Following her brief detention, the Israeli government's foreign affairs director, David Kimche, officially requested Rauff's outright expulsion in a meeting with Chilean Foreign Minister Jaime del Valle, but the request was turned down.
Death
Rauff remained an unrepentant Nazi until his death from lung cancer at the age of 77 in Santiago on 14 May, 1984. His funerals were the occasion of a Nazi celebration. According to his MI5 file, "he never showed any remorse for his actions, which he described as those of "a mere technical administrator."See also
- Ex-Nazis -- ex-NSDAP members and ex-Nazi officials, who after World War II had to go through a denazificationDenazificationDenazification was an Allied initiative to rid German and Austrian society, culture, press, economy, judiciary, and politics of any remnants of the National Socialist ideology. It was carried out specifically by removing those involved from positions of influence and by disbanding or rendering...
process or were subjected to the NurembergNuremberg TrialsThe Nuremberg Trials were a series of military tribunals, held by the victorious Allied forces of World War II, most notable for the prosecution of prominent members of the political, military, and economic leadership of the defeated Nazi Germany....
process, while many others managed to escape trial.
External links
- Walter Rauf's Funeral
- Nazi War Crimes and Japanese Imperial Government Records Interagency Working Group,"Walter Rauff", Disclosure, Nov 2002.
- Shraga Elam and Dennis Whitehead, "In the service of the Jewish state", Ha'aretz, 31 March 2007.
- Shraga Elam and Dennis Whitehead, "Rauff vs. the Yishuv", Ha'aretz, 7 April 2007.
- Security Service - MI5, "5 September 2005 releases: German intelligence officers", file ref. KV /1970a, "Walter Rauff".
- Jan Friedmann, "New Research Taints Image of Desert Fox Rommel", Der Spiegel Online, May 23, 2007.
- Tony Paterson, "'Chivalrous' Rommel wanted to bring Holocaust to Middle East", The Independent (London), 25 May 2007.
- Walter Rauff deposition before the Public Prosecutor, West German Embassy, Santiago de Chile, 28 June 1972 English translation.