WORLD : Nazi War Criminal Recaptured
A convicted Nazi war criminal nicknamed “William Tell,” who jumped bail in West Germany in April, has been arrested in Switzerland, the Justice Department announced today.
Police seized Gottfried Weise, 68, at a hospital in Thun on Tuesday following a tip-off that he had gone there under a false name for treatment after a heart attack.
Weise, an SS guard at the Auschwitz concentration camp in Poland during World War II, was dubbed William Tell by camp inmates for his practice of shooting tin cans off prisoners’ heads. He was convicted in 1988 of killing five prisoners in the camp. He served one month of a life sentence before being released pending appeal and jumped bail when the appeal was rejected.
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