Franz Nowak, a former Gestapo officer who was arrested here last Friday as a former aide to Adolf Eichmann, who directed the mass-killing of Jews in Europe, admitted today that he had been Eichmann’s ‘right hand’ in the annihilation of Jews. He asked not to be delivered to Israel where Eichmann is now awaiting trial.
(In West Germany, the Frankfurt prosecution office announced today it was considering a request to Austria for the extradition of Franz Nowak, Adolf Eichmann’s aide, who was arrested in Vienna. It was explained that the request would depend on Nowak’s nationality.)
Nowak, a printer by profession, was arrested shortly after a radio announcement that a search warrant for him had been issued in Frankfurt. After the German occupation of Austria, Nowak worked in the headquarters of the Nazi deportation offices for Jews and then was transferred to Berlin in 1939 when he was assigned as an “expert on technical questions” in connection with the deportation of Jews. Later he was a member of a special Eichmann unit in Budapest.
After the war he lived under a false name in Austria for several years but in recent years he felt so secure that he lived under his actual name in Langenzersdorf while working in a Vienna printshop. He was arrested on a tip from an anonymous caller.
The report from West Germany had announced that the Frankfurt State Prosecutor had offered 10,000 marks ($2,380) for information leading to the arrest of Nowak and two other former Eichmann aides, SS Majors Rolf Guenter and Hans Guenther. Novak said the Guenther brothers had committed suicide by gassing themselves in 1945.
The Archive of the Jewish Telegraphic Agency includes articles published from 1923 to 2008. Archive stories reflect the journalistic standards and practices of the time they were published.
