Argentina finally reveals truth about giving sanctuary to Josef Mengele

Last month, the Argentinian government declassified an official file relating to the Nazi war criminal Josef Mengele. He was known as “the Angel of Death” for his sadistic experiments on prisoners in Auschwitz. The release of documentation came about after pressure from Republicans in the US Senate and indicates that the Argentinian authorities knew exactly who Mengele was when he lived in the country during the 1950s – and turned a blind eye to his past and his perverted experiments, carried out in the name of medical science.

Documents in Spanish and Portuguese indirectly note his departure from Argentina to Paraguay in 1959-60 and then on to Brazil where he was given sanctuary by Nazi sympathisers and German families who provided accommodation for him.  Mengele had a stroke and died while swimming near the coastal town of Bertioga, south of Sao Paulo, in 1979 and was buried under an assumed name. DNA testing in 1985 on the exhumed body provided the evidence that it was indeed Mengele.

The recently released file shows that Mengele was listed as a member of a local SS fraternity in Argentina under his real name – and not under the name of Helmut Gregor on his Italian passport, which he used to enter the country in 1949. By 1956, he felt safe enough to obtain a copy of his birth certificate from the West German Embassy in Buenos Aires.

In 1945, Argentina was the country of choice for many Nazis. Thousands escaped to a new life in Latin America and prepared for it by depositing funds in banks in Buenos Aires during the last six months of World War II. Some 800 SS functionaries were able to reach Argentina on Red Cross travel documents.

Members of the Catholic clergy aided and abetted their escape from Italy. The “rat line” ran through Franco’s Spain, which received flights by the “Fuhrerstaffel” squadron which flew over northern Italy to avoid the advance of the Allies through France. The flights carried both Nazi personnel and funds. Franco’s Spain, along with Salazar’s Portugal and De Valera’s Ireland, were the only European countries to send condolences to Berlin on hearing of the death of Hitler. All Catholic countries.