A
Nazi-hunter is an individual who tracks down and gathers information on former Nazis and
SSThe , abbreviated SS- or - was a major Nazi organization under Adolf Hitler and the Nazi Party. The SS grew from a small paramilitary unit to a powerful force that served as the Führer's "Praetorian Guard," the Nazi Party's "Shield Squadron" and a force that, fielding almost a million men ,...
members who were involved in the
HolocaustThe Holocaust , also known as The Shoah is the term generally used to describe the genocide of approximately six million European Jews during World War II, a program of systematic state-sponsored extermination by Nazi Germany,...
so that they can be punished for
war crime.War crimes are "violations of the laws or customs of war"; including "murder, the ill-treatment or deportation of civilian residents of an occupied territory to slave labor camps", "the murder or ill-treatment of prisoners of war", the killing of hostages, "the wanton destruction of cities, towns...
s and
crimes against humanityCrimes against humanity, as defined by the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court Explanatory Memorandum, "are particularly odious offences in that they constitute a serious attack on human dignity or grave humiliation or a degradation of one or more human beings...
.
With the onset of the
Cold WarThe Cold War was the continuing state of political conflict, military tension, and economic competition existing after World War II , primarily between the USSR and its satellite states, and the powers of the Western world, including the United States...
following
World War IIWorld War II, or the Second World War , was a global military conflict which involved a majority of the world's nations, including all great powers, organized into two opposing military alliances: the Allies and the Axis...
, the Western Allies (excluding the Communist USSR) made use of former Nazi
scientistA scientist, in the broadest sense, is any person who engages in a systematic activity to acquire knowledge or an individual that engages in such practices and traditions that are linked to schools of thought or philosophy. In a more restricted sense, a scientist is an individual who uses the...
s and operatives for their own motives (e.g.,
Operation PaperclipOperation Paperclip was the code name for the 1945 Office of Strategic Services, Joint Intelligence Objectives Agencyrecruitment of German scientists from Nazi Germany to the U.S...
). Cooperative Nazis were occasionally given state protection in return for valuable information or services (e.g.,
Reinhard GehlenReinhard Gehlen was a General in the German Army during World War II, who served as chief of intelligence-gathering on the Eastern Front. After WWII, he was recruited by the United States military to set up a spy ring directed against the Soviet Union , and eventually became head of the West...
, chief of the German
BundesnachrichtendienstThe Bundesnachrichtendienst is the foreign intelligence agency of the German government, under the control of the Chancellor's Office. Its headquarters are in Pullach near Munich, and Berlin . The BND has 300 locations in Germany and foreign countries...
secret agency and founder of the Gehlen Org and co-founder of the
ODESSAODESSA, is believed to have been an international Nazi network set up towards the end of World War II by a group of SS officers in order to avoid their capture and prosecution for war crimes...
network, which helped exfiltrate Nazi criminals).
A
Nazi-hunter is an individual who tracks down and gathers information on former Nazis and
SSThe , abbreviated SS- or - was a major Nazi organization under Adolf Hitler and the Nazi Party. The SS grew from a small paramilitary unit to a powerful force that served as the Führer's "Praetorian Guard," the Nazi Party's "Shield Squadron" and a force that, fielding almost a million men ,...
members who were involved in the
HolocaustThe Holocaust , also known as The Shoah is the term generally used to describe the genocide of approximately six million European Jews during World War II, a program of systematic state-sponsored extermination by Nazi Germany,...
so that they can be punished for
war crime.War crimes are "violations of the laws or customs of war"; including "murder, the ill-treatment or deportation of civilian residents of an occupied territory to slave labor camps", "the murder or ill-treatment of prisoners of war", the killing of hostages, "the wanton destruction of cities, towns...
s and
crimes against humanityCrimes against humanity, as defined by the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court Explanatory Memorandum, "are particularly odious offences in that they constitute a serious attack on human dignity or grave humiliation or a degradation of one or more human beings...
.
With the onset of the
Cold WarThe Cold War was the continuing state of political conflict, military tension, and economic competition existing after World War II , primarily between the USSR and its satellite states, and the powers of the Western world, including the United States...
following
World War IIWorld War II, or the Second World War , was a global military conflict which involved a majority of the world's nations, including all great powers, organized into two opposing military alliances: the Allies and the Axis...
, the Western Allies (excluding the Communist USSR) made use of former Nazi
scientistA scientist, in the broadest sense, is any person who engages in a systematic activity to acquire knowledge or an individual that engages in such practices and traditions that are linked to schools of thought or philosophy. In a more restricted sense, a scientist is an individual who uses the...
s and operatives for their own motives (e.g.,
Operation PaperclipOperation Paperclip was the code name for the 1945 Office of Strategic Services, Joint Intelligence Objectives Agencyrecruitment of German scientists from Nazi Germany to the U.S...
). Cooperative Nazis were occasionally given state protection in return for valuable information or services (e.g.,
Reinhard GehlenReinhard Gehlen was a General in the German Army during World War II, who served as chief of intelligence-gathering on the Eastern Front. After WWII, he was recruited by the United States military to set up a spy ring directed against the Soviet Union , and eventually became head of the West...
, chief of the German
BundesnachrichtendienstThe Bundesnachrichtendienst is the foreign intelligence agency of the German government, under the control of the Chancellor's Office. Its headquarters are in Pullach near Munich, and Berlin . The BND has 300 locations in Germany and foreign countries...
secret agency and founder of the Gehlen Org and co-founder of the
ODESSAODESSA, is believed to have been an international Nazi network set up towards the end of World War II by a group of SS officers in order to avoid their capture and prosecution for war crimes...
network, which helped exfiltrate Nazi criminals). Private Nazi-hunters therefore sought out
fugitiveA fugitive is a person who is fleeing from custody, whether it be from private slavery, a government arrest, government or non-government questioning, vigilante violence, or outraged private individuals. As a verbal metaphor and psychological concept, one might also be described as a "fugitive...
s on their own, some of whom were
hiding out in lands far from EuropeRatlines were systems of escape routes for Nazis and other fascists fleeing Europe at the end of World War II. These escape routes mainly led toward safe havens in South America, particularly Argentina, Paraguay, Brazil, and Chile. Other destinations included the United States and perhaps Canada...
, such as
Latin AmericaLatin America is a region of the Americas where Romance languages – particularly Spanish, Portuguese, and variably French – are primarily spoken. Latin America has an area of approximately 21,069,501 km² , almost 3.9% of the Earth's surface or 14.1% of its land surface area...
.
In later years, with pressure from activists, there was greater cooperation with western governments, as well as
IsraelIsrael officially the State of Israel , is a developed state in Western Asia located on the eastern shore of the Mediterranean Sea. It borders Lebanon in the north, Syria in the northeast, Jordan in the east, and Egypt on the southwest, and contains geographically diverse features within its...
. The activity necessarily declined by the end of the 20th century as most of the generation active during the Holocaust have died out or reached extreme old age.
Some Nazi-hunters have included
Simon WiesenthalSimon Wiesenthal KBE was an Austrian-Jewish architectural engineer and Holocaust survivor who became famous after World War II for his work as a Nazi hunter who pursued Nazi war criminals in an effort to bring them to justice.Following four and a half years in the German concentration camps such...
,
Tuviah FriedmanTuviah Friedman is a retired Nazi hunter and director of the Institute for the Documentation of Nazi War Crimes in Haifa, Israel.Friedman was born in Poland January 23 1922. During World War II he was imprisoned in a Nazi concentration camp near Radom, from which he escaped in 1944. In 1945 he was...
,
Serge and Beate KlarsfeldSerge and Beate Klarsfeld are French- Romanian activists known for engaging in Holocaust documentation and anti-Nazi activism....
,
Yaron SvorayYaron Svoray is an Israeli author and investigative journalist whose six-month infiltration of Germany's neo-Nazi groups was documented in his book In Hitler's Shadow, co-written with Nick Taylor...
,
Elliot WellesElliot Welles whose original name was Kurt Sauerquell was a Holocaust survivor who for more than two decades until his retirement in 2003, directed the B'nai B'rith Anti-Defamation League's task force on Nazi war criminals.Welles was known in particular for his work on the case of Boleslav...
,
Michel ThomasMichel Thomas was a polyglot linguist, language teacher and decorated war veteran. He survived Nazi persecution, served in the French Resistance and worked with the U.S. Army Counter Intelligence Corps during World War II...
, and
Efraim ZuroffEfraim Zuroff is an Israeli historian of American origin, who has played an important role in the efforts to bring Nazi war criminals to justice during the past 28 years, thereby earning the title of "the last Nazi hunter." Zuroff is the director of the Simon Wiesenthal Center office in Jerusalem,...
.