EX-GI TELLS OF SEEING JOSEF MENGELE IN A U.S. PRISONER-OF-WAR CAMP

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP90-00552R000404200050-8
• Release Decision: RIPPUB
• Original Classification: K
• Document Page Count: 1
• Document Creation Date: December 22, 2016
• Document Release Date: July 6, 2010
• Sequence Number: 50
• Publication Date: February 15, 1985
• Content Type: OPEN SOURCE

STAT
Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2010/07/06: CIA-RDP90-005
WASHINGTON POST
15 February 1985
Ex-GI Tells of Seeing Josef Mengele
, In a U.S. Prisoner-of-\\tr Camp
By Jay Mathews
Washington Paw Staff Writer
LOS ANGELES, Feb. 14-A for-
mer U.S. soldier said today that he
saw a man identified as Dr. Josef
Mengele at an American prisoner-
of-war camp in Germany in 1945,
the first witness to suggest that the
notorious Nazi war criminal was
once in U.S. hands.
Two U.S. senators at a news con-
ference to hear the account by re-
tired aerospace engineer Walter
Kempthorne said they will insist
that the U.S. government deter-
mine whether Mengele was in
American custody and, if so, how he
could have escaped it.
Mengele, who would be 73 if
alive, was a physician and former
major in the Nazi secret police who
allegedly sent thousands of concen-
tration-camp prisoners to their
deaths in gas chambers and used
others, including many children, in
painful medical experiments. Con-
sidered the most notorious Nazi
war criminal still at large, Mengele
is wanted in West Germany on mur-
der charges and is thought to have
been hiding in South America since
the war.
Sen. Arlen Specter (R-Pa.) said
at the news conference at the Si-
mon Wiesenthal Center that inves-
tigations of U.S. dealings with other
former Nazis raise the possibility
that U.S. officials may have helped
Mengele escape in exchange for
information about Soviet activities
in Europe.
"I think Mengele is alive. I think
the noose is tightening," said Sen.
Alfonse M. D'Amato (R-N.Y.), who
praised a recent Justice Depart-
ment decision to begin a special
investigation of the Mengele case.
But, he added, citing a Freedom of
information Act suit that he has
filed against the U.S. Army, "the
release of all pertinent documents
should be the order of the day."
Army spokesman Lt. Col. Craig
MacNab said Kempthorne's report
"is brand-new information which we
welcome." The Army recently has
released other documents, one of
which suggests Mengele once lived
in Canada, and MacNab said it will
work with the center and other of-
ficials to pursue the lead. "The
problem is an embarrassment, not a
lack, of records .... They all have
to be gone through by hand," he
said.
Kempthorne, 59, of Riverside,
Calif., said he wrote to Rabbi ar-
vin Hier, dean of the Wiesenthal
Center, after reading a ut t h,, cen-
ter's earlier disclosure that a U.S.
intelligence officer thought en-
gele had been briefly in U.S. cus-
tody in 1947.
Kempthorne said he was serving
as a perimeter guard at an Army
Counter-Intelligence Corps post at
Idar-Oberstein, 50 miles east of
Trier in southwestern Germany,
when he encountered the man i en-.
til i as Mengele.
A friend who had a habit of trad-
ing favors with other soldiers in-
vited Kempthorne to help deliver
some liquor or cigarettes to a guard
inside the post. There he said he
saw what appeared to be a German
prisoner standing "at rigid atten-
tion, ... he had a fixed look on his
face .... He was breathing heavily
- and was red-faced."
In a letter to Hier released today,
Kempthorne quoted his conversa-
tion with the man's two U.S.
guards:
Kempthorne: "Geez, what are
you guys trying to do to him? He's
ready to fall over."
One of the guards: "We're get-
ting him in shape to .get hung. This
here is Mengele. The bastard that
sterilized 3,000 women at Ausch-
witz. (Turning to the prisoner)
C'mon, boy, you're good for anoth-
er 100 . . . . "
On his guard's command, the
prisoner dropped to the ground to
do more pushups, but was too ex-
hausted and was led away, Kemp-
thorne said.
Kempthorne said he does not re-
member the prisoner's face, but
noted he had black hair and was
about 5 feet 8 and 165 pounds,
which Hier said nearly matches
Mengele's description. He remem-
bered the prisoner wore "shell- or
horned-rimmed glasses." -
Hier said pictures taken of Men-
gele before the war show him with-
out glasses and Kempthorne's fail-
ure to remember facial character-
istics might make identification
from old photographs difficult..Hier
said he hoped publicity about the
case and the search of Army
records would uncover more wit-
nesses or data on the fugitive Nazi.
Kempthorne said he has occa-
sionally thought of the incident
when reading about Mengele since
then, but did not know who might
be interested in hearing his story
until he read of the center's inves-
tigation.
"I always visualize the name of
Mengele with the face of the man I
saw in that camp because I connect
it with 3,000 sterilized women,"
Kempthorne said. "That's a mental
image that is hard to.forget, espe-
cially for a 19-year-old kid."
Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2010/07/06: CIA-RDP90-00552R000404200050-8