U.S. May Probe Possible Involvement With Mengele

Justice Department officials said Thursday that they may open a formal investigation into possible U.S. postwar involvement with Dr. Josef Mengele, the notorious Nazi war criminal known as the “Butcher of Auschwitz.”

Department spokesman John K. Russell said officials of the Office of Special Investigations had received data on Mengele sent by the Los Angeles-based Simon Wiesenthal Center for Holocaust Studies and “we are assessing the situation to see if we should open a formal investigation into that matter.”

Russell added, however, that “we normally do not investigate old cases for historical purposes unless it is possible for criminal charges to be brought, which seems unlikely in this instance.”

The Wiesenthal Center, calling for a federal investigation, said Wednesday that government documents it had obtained show Mengele may have been arrested by American authorities in Vienna in 1947 and subsequently released. Mengele was accused of taking part in the murder of 400,000 Jews during World War II and performing hideous medical experiments on concentration camp inmates.

Believed to be in hiding in South America if he is still alive, the 73-year-old physician heads the list of Nazi war criminals still at large.

The documents, which the center obtained under the Freedom of Information Act, include a 1947 letter written by an Army counterintelligence officer that mentions Mengele’s possible arrest. The center has been unable to locate the officer.

Although the Justice Department’s special investigations office tries to track down Nazi war criminals living in the United States, Russell noted that Mengele “is not within the United States and not within our jurisdiction.” He added that the department “does not have jurisdiction over crimes committed outside the United States.”

State Department spokesman Bernard Kalb, asked about the case at his daily news briefing, referred all questions to the Justice Department. However, another top department official, who requested anonymity, said that “it would be morally irresponsible not to investigate” the new disclosure about Mengele.

Pentagon officials, meanwhile, said there is “nothing conclusive” in their files on whether Mengele had ever been detained by U.S. occupation forces in postwar Vienna. Defense Department spokesman Michael Burch said that agency’s files are being given to the Justice Department.

Rabbi Abraham Cooper, the Wiesenthal Center’s associate dean, said Thursday that the government should launch an “independent inquiry” beyond the scope of the Justice Department that would include “historians, intelligence experts and other authorities in that area.”