RESEARCHERS FIND SIGNS U.S. KNEW OF MENGELE'S POSTWAR HIDEOUT

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP90-00965R000504300007-6
• Release Decision: RIPPUB
• Original Classification: K
• Document Page Count: 2
• Document Creation Date: December 22, 2016
• Document Release Date: February 27, 2012
• Sequence Number: 7
• Publication Date: March 13, 1985
• Content Type: OPEN SOURCE

Declassified in Part - Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2012/02/28: CIA-RDP90-00965R000504300007-6
ARTICLE APPEARED
ON PAGE , - O
WASHINGTON POST
15 March 1985
Researchers Find Signs U.S. Knew
By Jay Mathews
Washington Post Staff Writer
LOS ANGELES, March 14-Research-
ers here have uncovered evidence indicat-
ing that U.S. officials knew of a postwar
German hideaway used by accused Nazi war
criminal Dr. Josef Mengele but failed to
alert authorities.
Rabbi Marvin Hier, dean of the Simon
Wiesenthal Center here, said a West Ger-
man government prosecutor acting on the
new information has located a cottage in the
Bavarian town of Autenried rented by Men-
gele's wife from 1945 to 1949.
Two U.S. Army intelligence index cards,
discovered in a pile of Army documents ac-
quired by the center, list Autenried as Men-
gele's residence. The cards provide the lat-
est in a chain of clues indicating a link be-
tween postwar U.S. officials and the man
charged with killing thousands of people at
the Auschwitz death camp. '
A U.S. Army spokesman refused to com-
ment today, saying that neither Army nor
Justice Department investigators had seen
the new evidence.
Rabbi Abraham Cooper, assistant dean of
the center, said the West German prosecu-
tor in Frankfurt heading the search for the
fugitive Mengele "went crazy" when told of
the Autenried connection. No information
previously available to investigators had
mentioned the town, about seven miles
from Mengele's birthplace at Gunzberg.
Hier said the prosecutor told him by tele-
phone this morning that investigators were
combing the town for people who might
remember the infamous Nazi physician who
allegedly conducted painful and lethal ex-
periments on Jewish children, particularly
twins, at Auschwitz.
The center recently has released state-
ments from two former U.S. Army person-
nel who say they believe that they saw
Mengele in U.S. custody or heard reliable
reports that he had been arrested by U.S.
authorities in the two years after World
War H.
Mengele, who would be 73 if he is alive,
is thought to be hiding in Paraguay. He was
first seen in South America in 1949. Inves-
tigators have been unable to discover how
of Mengele's Postwar
Hideout;~
he escaped capture after the war or how he
managed to leave Germany undetected.
Based on the discovery in U.S. files of the
Autenried references and the confirmation
"It is difficult to
understand how
American intelligence
came to know a specific
address ... as the
permanent address of
Dr. Josef Mengele."
of a Mengele connection with the town, "the
conclusion that we are heading for is that
the Army knew he was there but did not
reveal it," Cooper said. Center leaders have
suggested that U.S. officials may have pro-
tected Mengele, as they protected a few
other former Nazi officers, in exchange for
intelligence on Soviet activities in Germany.
In a letter sent Monday to Lt. Gen. Wil-
liam Odom, assistant Army chief of staff for
intelligence, Hier asked for an investigation
of the source of the information on the two
cards. One card is undated, with the word
Autenried penned in; the other is dated
Dec. 5, 1960, with the place typed in. The
undated card also contains what appears to
be an, address, "Kayausbach," which has
been crossed out.
her said he initially thought that the in-
formation had come from fragebogen, the
questionnaires that Mengele's relatives and
other former Nazi Party members were
Declassified in Part - Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2012/02/28: CIA-RDP90-00965R000504300007-6
 Declassified in Part - Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2012/02/28: CIA-RDP90-00965R000504300007-6
required to fill out after the war. But a
check of the forms filed by Mengele's fa-
ther, Karl, and his brother, Karl Jr., show
no such reference.
"Unless there are other fragebogen, not
currently retrievable, from which this in-
formation originally was culled, it is difficult
to understand how American intelligence
came to know a spec' address ... as the
permanent address of Dr. Josef Mengele,"
Hier told Odom. "The information contained"
on the card could come to play a central
role ' in the investigation of whether
the United States played a role in the case
The Wiesenthal Center obtained the in-"
dex cards as the result of a U.S. Freedom of
Information request that has yielded other
leads to Mengele's postwar activities. The
center's new information has led the Justice
Department to announce a probe, by its
special investigations office, of Mengele's
whereabouts and any role U.S. officials
might have played in spiriting him out of
Germany.
Hier said the Frankfurt prosecutor tole
him that a local farmer said he rented a cof-
tage in Autenried to Irene Mengele, the
fugitive's wife, but that he never saw he
husband., The prosecutor said he suspects
that the an may not have told all he knows
because of his previous connections with
the Mengele family, so investigators are
questioning several other residents.
Special correspondent Katharine Macdonald
contributed to this report
Declassified in Part - Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2012/02/28: CIA-RDP90-00965R000504300007-6