East Germany's intelligence agency deliberately withheld information that incriminated Nazi criminals, including infamous Auschwitz physician Josef Mengele, a new book by German historian Henry Leide revealed.
In Auschwitz und Staatssicherheit, Leide explained that the agency, called the Stasi, buried in its archives the testimony of Dr. Horst Fischer, a German doctor who also worked at the Auschwitz-Birkenau concentration camp, which could have otherwise aided the capture of Mengele, who fled to South America after World War II.
Fischer was arrested by East German investigators in 1965 for heading the selection process at Auschwitz and the Monowitz concentration camps. Stasi officials were looking to get information from the doctor on Nazi criminals who had not yet been brought to justice, and Fischer, who was facing a death sentence, provided them with detailed testimony in hopes to ease his punishment.
Fischer thought his cooperation would help spare his life, but eight weeks later, he was executed in Leipzig on July 8, 1966.
The testimony he gave to Stasi incriminated Mengele, known as the Angel of Death, who performed horrific experiments on Auschwitz prisoners, particularly twins.
Instead of using Fischer's testimony to track down Mengele, Stasi stacked it away in its archives on the Nazi era, which was set up in Berlin, next to its headquarters.
The document was not used at all, despite efforts by West Germany, Israel, and Nazi hunters to track down Mengele. East Germany pretended to lead the struggle against fascism, but in reality, it only hindered efforts to bring Mengele to justice.
In his testimony, Fischer spoke of the first time he met Mengele in the summer of 1941 when he served as a doctor in the SS Wiking division that participated in Operation Barbarossa, the invasion of the Soviet Union by Nazi Germany.
"During our first meeting, which was very superficial and short, Mengele gave the impression of a humble man, very closed and composed," Fischer said.
The next time they met in Auschwitz, Fischer returned to Germany from the war after having contracted tuberculosis. He was appointed as a doctor at the Monowitz camp and the IG Farben chemical company, which produced the Zyklon B cyanide-based pesticide that the Nazi regime used in its gas chambers to murder millions of Jews.
Fischer was also responsible for the selection process of Jews who were transported to Auschwitz. He called the shots as to who was declared able-bodied and was sent to the concentration camps and who was sent to their deaths.
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