Justice Dept. Says Nazi Used Army as Cloak

The Army relied on war criminals for its post-World War II intelligence, allowing a Flemish Nazi to use the service to avoid punishment for his war crimes, a Justice Department report charged today.

Robert Jan Verbelen, convicted in absentia by a Belgian military court for the murders of 101 people, worked for the Army’s Counter Intelligence Corps in Vienna from 1946 to 1956.

Although the Army did not learn Verbelen’s true identity until 1956, the military never attempted to question the informant about his background and avoided closer scrutiny of his past, the report said.

“The Counter Intelligence Corps’ employment of Verbelen enabled him to support himself, to acquire false identification documents . . . and to develop the experience in intelligence work that made it possible for him to obtain employment with the Austrian State Police and, ultimately, Austrian citizenship,” the report said.

Avoided Prosecution

“Verbelen thus manipulated the Counter Intelligence Corps into protecting him from being brought to justice for his crimes.”

The report noted it was a standard practice for the Army to hire Nazi criminals or collaborators, but the Justice Department criticized the service for its lack of sophistication in dealing with such figures.

“A tainted past could make an informant an easy target for blackmail regardless of his current political sympathies” said the 92-page report, the culmination of a two-year investigation requested by the Anti-Defamation League of B’nai B’rith.

Verbelen, who led a Flemish fascist security corps, obtained false identity papers after the war and moved to Vienna, where he made contact with a group of Nazis and German intelligence officers working for the Army, the report said.

Informed on Soviets

Using the name Peter Mayer, Verbelen became a source for one of the Army’s Nazi informants and later became an informant himself, supplying information on Soviet activities in Austria, the report said.

In 1950, however, Verbelen told the Counter Intelligence Corps his name was not Mayer and he told the Army about his membership in the Nazi Party and his work as a security officer.

But the Army failed to verify the information Verbelen provided and continued to employ him as an informant until 1956, when he revealed his true identity and was fired.

Verbelen, who currently lives in the Vienna area, obtained Austrian citizenship in 1959, preventing Belgium from ever extraditing him.