Wiesenthal Says Recent ‘hoax’ Attempted to Divert Attention Away from Barbie

Simon Wiesenthal, the Nazi hunter, claims that a secret organization of ex-Nazis living in South America was responsible for a recent “hoax” intended to divert attention from the French government’s efforts to obtain the extradition of Klaus Barbie, the Gestapo “butcher of Lyons” living in Bolivia.

Wiesenthal, who heads the war crimes documentation center in Vienna, said in a Vienna interview published today in the Sunday Times that the group known as the “Comradeship Trust” was set up by former SS men to look after the interests of wanted Nazi war criminals and their families.

He said it was responsible for last month’s news reports flashed all over the world that Hitler’s deputy, Martin Bormann, was discovered alive in a remote Indian village in the Colombian jungles. The man turned out to be a harmless 72-year old German recluse who hadn’t been in Germany since 1926. But the effect, Wiesenthal said, was to divert attention from the Barbie case which was getting “too hot.”

According to Wiesenthal, Barbie is reported to be using the alias of Klaus Altmann. Barbie-Altmann, Wiesenthal said, has managed to leave Bolivia and is hiding out in Paraguay which is less likely than Bolivia to extradite him.

Wiesenthal said a key figure in the “Comradeship Trust” was Frederico Schwendt, a former SS Major, who is now a senior engineer at the Volkswagon plant in Lima, Peru. He said Schwendt is wanted for war crimes in Italy and had recently approached him through an intermediary to make a deal for the disclosure of the real whereabouts of Martin Bormann. Wiesenthal said Schwendt offered to expose Bormann if Wiesenthal would intervene with the Italian government to get the charges dropped. The Nazi hunter said he replied that he made no deals with Nazis.

National Solidarity Day rallies April 30 will publicize concern for the plight of Soviet Jews.