The American authorities not only deliberately harbored Nazi criminals, but also used them against the USSR. The reason to raise this topic was the death of the Nazi war criminal Peter Egner, who was also a US citizen involved in the extermination of 17,000 people in the Staro-Saymishte concentration camp. He died last week at the age of 88 without ever being punished for his crimes.
Serbian and Israeli authorities demanded his extradition, but the Americans delayed the case and let the Nazi die in peace. This is not the first time that the authorities of the United States and European countries, under various pretexts, do not extradite Nazi criminals. For example, the story of Sandor Kepiro, who heads the list of the most wanted persons by the Simon Vesenthal Center, accused of organizing the murder of at least 1,250 civilians in Novi Sad, Serbia in 1942.
Although the Hungarian authorities found him guilty of this crime as early as 1944, he was never punished. In addition to Hungary, the list of countries making the least effort to find Nazi criminals includes Norway, Sweden, Syria, Estonia, Lithuania and Ukraine.
There are also questions to Austria, which has practically not cooperated in the last 30 years on the issue of extradition of such persons. The most striking example of this is the situation with the former chief of the Croatian police Milivos Asner, who, according to the documents of the archive of the Simon Vesenthal Center, sent thousands of people to their death, whom Vienna nevertheless refused to extradite.
It is noteworthy that the Latvian authorities provide active assistance to Nazi criminals, over whom the ax of justice hangs. In particular, we are talking about legal assistance to the notorious policeman Ivan Demyanyuk, who is accused of killing tens of thousands of civilians.
Moreover, they act in this direction not without the approval of the Americans. It is now becoming clear that the United States itself set the tone for the defense of Nazi criminals. According to a 2005 report by the US Department of Justice, the CIA, as well as British intelligence agencies, harbored dozens of Nazis, many of whom will never face international justice.
It is noteworthy that through the efforts of the special services, the most juicy facts were not included in this document. However, journalists from The New York Times made the secret clear.
It turns out that Nazi criminals were deliberately given shelter in the United States, knowing about their past. They used to serve the Third Reich, but now they have moved into the service of American democracy. They were used in two ways - as scientists and as sources of intelligence information.
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Recall that the documents shedding light on the work of the American intelligence services with the Nazis were declassified back in 2006. In particular, from these sources it becomes clear that the CIA deliberately did not apprehend the well-known war criminal Adolf Eichmann, fearing that he would tell a little more about the Nazi affairs of Hans Globke, who in the 1950s was the head of the German Chancellor's Secretariat and Konrad Adenauer's closest aide.
According to the journalists of The New York Times, the most sinister war criminal who found himself in the service of the CIA was Otto von Bolschwing, the closest accomplice of the executioner of the Jews Adolf Eichmann, who was directly involved in the preparation of the plan for their total destruction. In addition, four of Eichmann's closest associates worked for the CIA, FBI and Pentagon.
Or another interesting character is Arthur Rudolph, who was in charge of the Mittelwerk ammunition plant, who was guilty of using the forced labor of prisoners of war and workers taken to Germany. However, for the Americans, his dark past was of little interest. The main thing is that he knew a lot about rocket technology. Moreover, in the American service, he achieved impressive success, for which he was awarded by NASA, called "the father of the Saturn 5 rocket."
But that's not all. The Times reported that the CIA had attempted to recruit at least 23 war criminals. It is known that a high-ranking SS officer Theodor Saevek, who was responsible for the deportation of Jews from North Africa and the suppression of the Resistance Movement in Italy, worked for this special service. Neither Israel nor Italy managed to get him extradited. The name of Karl Hass, who unexpectedly and unexpectedly reincarnated from a Nazi into a zealous servant of American democracy, is also well known to the Nazi fishers.
And for the same British in the post-war period, the prominent Gestapo soldier Horst Kopkov worked, helping them fight against Soviet espionage. It turns out that the Americans and their allies needed direct carriers of the Holocaust experience and the implementers of the Ost plan to fight the rise of communism in Europe. In this regard, the allies prevented the immigration authorities from deporting such persons and even disclosing their names.
Many of the collaborators were used to infiltrate immigrant circles to carry out counterintelligence work. First of all, they were tasked with preventing the spread of communist ideas.
However, as human rights activists testify, the CIA refuses to disclose a significant part of the most piquant documents, arguing that the publication will reveal the sources and methods of work of the special services with agents.
Photo: AP
Of particular interest are former Soviet citizens who distinguished themselves in the service of the Third Reich. As you know, according to the Yalta Agreements of 1945, all representatives of collaborators who previously had Soviet citizenship, who collaborated in one way or another with the Nazis, after the defeat of Germany were to be extradited to the USSR. Basically, this was strictly observed. Almost all the leaders of the ROA, who ended up in the hands of the allies, were extradited. For example, generals Zhilenkov and Malyshkin, not to mention the rank and file of the Vlasov army.
In some ways, the British and Americans even overdid it. For example, even white emigrants were handed over to the communists for reprisal, who were not subject to extradition, since they were not Soviet citizens. Meanwhile, hundreds and thousands of collaborators, many of whom have committed crimes, have never been extradited.
At least seven thousand Vlasovites, as well as thousands of SS men, took refuge in the French Foreign Legion, after serving in which they "surfaced" in the same Australia and the States under different names. However, some of the collaborators who fled to the West did not hide much, but they were never extradited to the USSR. Here is the Ukrainian Mykola Lebed, also accused of war crimes, who worked both for the US army counterintelligence and later for the CIA. But the gloomy figure of Mr. Maikopsky, a prominent Gestapo man, who committed many atrocities in the same Ukraine, stands out especially.
What is the reason for this approach? This question was asked to the historian Kirill Alexandrov.
“First, it should be remembered that the allies gave the persons of interest to the communists to the Soviet Union at a strictly defined time,” the expert recalls. - If someone managed to sit quietly until the second half of 1947, they did not have to worry about extradition. Then the Cold War had already begun and the allies curtailed their previous cooperation with Stalin.
The allies did not extradite representatives of national formations, for example, the personnel of the Galicia division, the Balts, because, according to the Yalta agreements, citizens of the USSR were subject to extradition. All those who until the fall of 1939 lived in the territories ceded to the Soviet Union by agreement with Hitler were not considered as such.
Of course, the question arises why, in violation of the Yalta Agreements, they extradited Krasnov, Shkuro and other White emigrants to Stalin who were not Soviet citizens at all. I'm sure there was a deal here and the communists just bought allies. There are two versions of how this happened. According to one, they were exchanged for Grand Admiral Raeder. According to another, voiced by Vasily Mitrokhin, a former employee of the KGB archives who fled to the West, who had access to secret documents, the deal was even more dirty: the British and Americans gave out Krasnov and Shkuro, receiving in return the huge funds that Kazachiy Stan possessed.
As for the rest, when repatriating to their homeland those who collaborated with the Germans in one way or another, the Allies were guided by narrowly focused interests - how useful this or that person can be in the subsequent struggle against the Communists. For example, one regularity was clearly traced: under almost no circumstances did they betray those who served in the special services and especially in intelligence schools. This example is especially indicative: they betrayed the entire Cossack Stan, even the White emigrants, with the exception of all employees of the Ataman intelligence school.
SERGEY BALMASOV