A representative of the federal prosecutor’s office arrived in Buenos Aires Friday with a mass of documentary evidence it is hoped will speed the extradition of Josef Schwammberger to stand trial in West Germany on charges of murdering thousands of Jews in Poland during World War II.
A Justice Ministry spokesman said the documents should help make a positive identification of Schwammberger and link him to killings and atrocities in the ghettos and slave labor camps of Przemsyl, Rozwadow, Stalowa-Woda and the concentration camp in Mielce.
But the authorities here acknowledge there may be difficulties. The main obstacle is that Schwammberger holds Argentine citizenship. Bonn hopes the Argentine authorities can find a way to strip him of his rights as a citizen by proving that he lied about his Nazi activities when he applied for a passport around 1950. This is the method used by the United States Department of Justice against suspected war criminals who obtained American citizenship by falsifying their past.
According to Justice Ministry officials here, the Argentine government has promised to do everything possible to facilitate the extradition of Schwammberger.
The former Nazi was arrested in Cordoba province in northern Argentina last month on the basis of information provided by several sources, including Simon Wiesenthal’s war crimes documentation center in Vienna and the Los Angeles-based Simon Wiesenthal Center.
ARGENTINE COURT TO HEAR CASE
The case will soon go before a court in Buenos Aires, where the additional dossiers provided by West Germany will be presented in evidence. But this might be delayed by Schwammberger’s alleged poor health. He was admitted to a prison infirmary last week after complaining of chest pains.
Schwammberger, now 75, was arrested in Austria in 1945. But he escaped to South America in 1948, possibly with the aid of the underground Nazi rescue network known as “Odessa.” He entered Argentina two years later under his own name and was employed by a German company, Siemens.
An arrest warrant for Schwammberger was issued in 1973 by a court in Stuttgart, West Germany. He is expected to stand trial there after extradition.
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