Aiding and Abetting: US Intelligence Agencies and Nazi War Criminals

12-10-2010 • RawStory.com

The records were made available under the Nazi War Crimes Disclosure Act of 1998, one of the most ambitious and exhaustive federal government efforts to expose its own secrets. The papers include correspondence, legal documents, excerpts, clippings, medical records and vouchers. They illuminate the activities and postwar whereabouts of some of the most high-profile alleged Nazi war criminals. One of the report's chapters deals explicitly with how the Americans used Gestapo officers, including Rudolf Mildner, after the war. Mildner oversaw security in Denmark in 1943 when most of the country's 8,000 Jews were ordered arrested and deported to Auschwitz concentration camp — though they were rescued after Danish resistance leaders were tipped off. The Army detained Mildner, and kept him from landing in the hands of war crimes investigators, because his knowledge of Communist subversion was considered useful. "The Army's willingness to use Gestapo officials against Communists was more substantial or greater than what we had known, even if there are no cases as prominent or large as Klaus Barbie," said Breitman, referring to the notorious "Butcher of Lyon" who worked for U.S. intelligence in the postwar period.