Tuvia Friedman, the Israeli Nazi-hunter, said today that about 50,000 Nazi war criminals still at large will escape justice if the statute of limitations on the prosecution of Nazi war crimes is allowed to do into effect Jan. 1, 1980. He warned that unless the West German government extends the deadline for the prosecution of war crimes, the world would witness a resurgence of Nazism in Germany.
Friedman, who lives in Haifa, spoke at a press conference here arranged by the Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations. He is engaged in an international campaign to abolish the statute of limitations for war crimes. According to Friedman, thousands of former Gestapo officers and SS men are waiting in hiding for the day when they will be immune from legal action. “They will build a new Nazi Party in Germany,” he said.
He added that there is information that Nazi war criminals are organized in South America and that they have created “a terrible weapon — something like an atom bomb,” and are waiting to return to Germany at the end of the year. He said the war criminals are supported by the German arms industry.
“The neo-Nazi movement in Germany will be given new life with the return of 50,000 Nazi murderers to the beer halls of Germany, unafraid and free of any possibility that they will be tried for their role in the extermination of Jews, the Gypsies and the millions of other victims of Nazi genocide,” Friedman said.
the Nazi-hunter, who helped bring Adolf Eichmann to justice nearly 20 years ago, arrived here from West Germany where he met with officials of the Bonn government. He said that Minister of Justice Dr. Hans Joachim Vogel supports efforts to repeal the statute of limitations.
Yehuda Hellman, executive director of the Conference of Presidents, said that a delegation of the Conference would meet with the West German Ambassador, Bernd von Stoden, at the German Embassy in Washington Feb. 6 to urge the repeal of the statute of limitations.
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