The Argentinian government has declassified a series of important documents about Nazis and their activities in Argentina, as well as secret and classified presidential decrees from 1957 to 2005. This includes many documents pertaining to the lives of Adolf Eichmann and Josef Mengele in the South American country.
The documents were made available to the general public this week via the Argentinian National Archives (AGN). Prior to this move, the documentation related to the activities of Nazi leaders in Argentina could only be viewed in a specially designated room at the National Archives. Now, anyone can access it online and download it from anywhere in the country or around the world.
The release of the documentation was requested by President Javier Milei in February of this year.
Argentina’s archives on Nazi activities consist of approximately 1,850 documentary pieces, all of which have been transferred to the Simon Wiesenthal Center, which is currently investigating Credit Suisse’s ties to Nazism.
Mengele in Argentina
The documents are focused on the activities of several prolific Nazis who fled to the country following the collapse of the Third Reich. These include Josef Mengele, Adolf Eichmann, Ante Pavelić, Josef Schwammberger, Eduard Roschmann, Gustav Wagner, Walter Kutschmann, Martin Bormann, and Klaus Barbie.
Among the files are ones relating to infamous Nazi doctor and “Angel of Death” Mengele’s stay in the country, including his police record, newspaper clippings referring to him, photographs, and security reports.
Mengele, who entered Argentina on June 22, 1949, under the alias Helmut Gregor, later applied for a new ID card, including reverting to his actual name and surname on November 26, 1955. Following the restoration of his identity, Mengele traveled to Uruguay to marry his brother’s widow, and the two returned to live in Argentina.
Capture of Eichmann
The archives also contain a copy of an article from The Jerusalem Post entitled “A monster from Auschwitz discovered in a lair in Argentina.”
The archives show SS Captain Walter Kutschmann entering Argentina in 1948 and Adolf Eichmann in 1950.Eichmann used a passport issued by the Red Cross to enter Argentina in 1950 as ‘Riccardo Klement,’ an Italian-born technician, before moving to Buenos Aires.
Information regarding his whereabouts began to reach Israel in the late 1950s, spurring the Mossad and Shin Bet (Israel Security Agency) to track Eichmann down, in an operation led by Isser Harel. On May 11, 1960, Eichmann was abducted near his home in Buenos Aires by a team of Israeli agents, smuggled out of Argentina, and flown to Israel.
The declassified files prove that Argentinian security forces assisted the Mossad in the operation.
Upon arriving in Tel Aviv, Harel called Israeli Prime Minister David Ben-Gurion and said, “I have a gift for you.” Two years later, on May 31, 1962, Eichmann was hanged for crimes against humanity.
According to Argentinian news reports, some figures such as Bormann – Hitler’s secretary – never set foot in South America, however, there were rumors of their presence. The Argentinian archives have declassified two files on Bormann, including an intelligence document dating his arrival in the country to 1948 and press clippings that also place him in Bolivia and Paraguay. His remains were found in Berlin in 1972.
The Simon Wiesenthal Center commended the release of declassified archives to the public in a post on X/Twitter.While the archives do not provide new information for experts, they allows interested members of the public to become informed, Ariel Gelblung, director of the Simón Wiesenthal Center, told the Spanish daily El Pais.
“This shows how Argentina’s position on this issue in the 1950s, 1960s, and 1970s was very different from what it was after the return of democracy in 1983, when all the war criminals found were extradited,” he said.