Fugitive Nazi War Criminal Discovered at Swiss Hospital
A Nazi war criminal known as the “William Tell of Auschwitz” for forcing prisoners to balance tin cans on their heads before shooting them has been arrested in Switzerland, officials said Wednesday.
Gottfried Weise, 69, was arrested at a hospital in the Swiss community of Thun, where he had sought treatment for a stroke, said Horst Rosenbaum, Wueppertal’s chief prosecutor. Weise had disappeared from West Germany three months earlier.
The head of the Thun regional hospital, Beat Straubhaar, said Weise had been in the facility for two weeks under the name of Sieber.
The hospital chief said Weise disclosed that he was sought in West Germany, and hospital authorities summoned police. Weise indicated to hospital workers that he will voluntarily return to West Germany without extradition, Straubhaar said.
He was convicted on Jan. 28, 1988, by a Wueppertal court of killing at least five prisoners in 1944 while a guard at the Auschwitz death camp in Poland.
Weise had been allowed to remain at his home pending appeal to care for his sick wife.
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