The Association of Jewish Survivors of Nazi Persecution has urged Interior Minister Alberto Rocamora to take action against the Nazi war criminal, Walter Kutschmann who has been living in Argentina since 1947 under the alias of Pedro Ricardo Olmos. Kutschmann was arrested last week and detained by federal police for six hours for questioning. He could face denaturalization and possible deportation if it is determined that he obtained Argentine citizenship under a false name.
(Nazi-hunter Simon Wiesenthal said in Vienna yesterday that he was contacting the public prosecutor in West Germany to initiate extradition action against Kutschmann. According to Wiesenthal, who heads the Nazi war crimes documentation center in Vienna, Kutschmann was responsible for the execution of 20 Polish-Jewish university professors and their families in Lwow on July 4, 1941. He said the full dossier on Kutschmann would be handed over to Argentine authorities. He said that Kutschmann’s arrest had been ordered by “high government figures” in Buenos Aires following consultation with the documentation center in Vienna.)
Kutschmann, meanwhile, has denied that he is the wanted Nazi. He claimed, in a statement to the local press yesterday that he was born in Spain and accounted for his German accent by saying he was brought to Germany as a child, This, however, does not tally with information from West Germany that Kutschmann admitted his true identity. He told newspapers here, “I reject charges brought against me. I am proud of my Argentine citizenship.”
He claimed that the charges against him were false but were published as fact by the Argentine press. He said he had “received assurances from Bonn that they will put a final stop to this defamation campaign, quite common in Latin American countries, especially in Argentina.” He also said he would hold a press conference shortly and hinted at “great revelations about the work done by Nazi-hunters acting in Vienna,” an apparent reference to Wiesenthal.
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