Aribert Heim

Aribert Heim (28 June 1914 - 1992 [2]) was a former Austrian doctor, also known as "Dr. Death". As an SS doctor in a Nazi concentration camp in Mauthausen, he is accused of killing and torturing many inmates through various methods, such as direct injections of toxic compounds into the hearts of his victims. He was believed alive as late as 2009m, making him, along with Alois Brunner, one of the last major Nazi fugitives believed to be still at large. However, the BBC reported that, according to German broadcaster ZDF, Mr. Heim has been dead since 1992. According to the report, he lived in Cairo, where his passport was found in a hotel where he lived^[1].

As of 7 July 2008, Heim was believed to be alive and hiding in Patagonia, either in Chile or Argentina.^[2] Heim's daughter lives in the outskirts of Puerto Montt, a large Chilean seaport in northern Patagonia.^[3]

On 6 July 2008 Dr. Efraim Zuroff, the Wiesenthal Center's chief Nazi-hunter, headed to South America as part of a public campaign to capture the most wanted Nazi in the world and bring him to justice.^[4] He elaborated on July 15 2008 that he was sure Heim was alive and the groundwork had been laid to capture him within weeks.^[5]

Heim was born in Bad Radkersburg, Austria-Hungary. He was the son of a policeman and a housewife. He studied medicine and did his medical studies in Vienna before volunteering to join the Waffen-SS in the spring of 1940.

In October 1941, Heim was sent into the KZ Mauthausen, where he performed medical experiments on prisoners. He was later sent to an SS field hospital in Vienna.

The prisoners in Concentration Camp Mauthausen called Heim "Dr. Death". For about two months (October to December 1941), Heim was in the camp near Linz, Austria called Ebensee, where he carried out similar experiments on Jews as the Auschwitz doctor Josef Mengele had done. "Heim scared his prisoners to death," said a survivor.^{[citation needed]} Jewish inmates were poisoned with various injections directly into the heart - including petrol, water and poison - in order to induce death more quickly.^[4]

According to a former camp inmate, an 18-year-old Jewish youth came to the clinic with a foot inflammation. He was asked by Heim why it was that he was so fit. He replied that he had been a soccer player and swimmer. Instead of treating the prisoner's foot, Heim placed him under anesthesia, cut him open, took apart one kidney, removed the second and castrated him. The boy was decapitated and Heim boiled the flesh off the skull so it could be displayed, the former inmate said.^[6]

From February 1942, Heim served in the 6th SS Mountain Division Nord in Northern Finland, especially in Oulu's hospitals as an SS doctor. His service continued until at least October 1942.^[7][8]

On 15 March 1945 Heim was captured by US soldiers and sent to a camp for prisoners of war. He was released under dubious circumstances and worked as a gynecologist at Baden-Baden until his disappearance in 1962.^[9] He had been tipped off by an informant that the Austrian police were investigating him for war crimes. Subsequently, he disappeared, moving to Spain, Uruguay (where he opened up a psychiatric and gynecology clinic from 1979 to 1983), probably also Argentina and Paraguay,^[9] possibly also Egypt and Brazil,^[10] and then finally Spain again until 2005.^[9]

After Alois Brunner (Adolf Eichmann's top assistant), Heim has been the second most wanted Nazi officer.

Heim has reportedly hidden out in South America, Spain, and the Balkans. Efraim Zuroff, of the Wiesenthal Center, has initiated an active search for his whereabouts, and in late 2005, Spanish police determined his location as being Palafrugell.^[11] According to El Mundo, Heim had been helped by associates of Otto Skorzeny, who had organized one of the biggest ODESSA bases in Franco's Spain.^[12] ODESSA was obviously still in place, in one way or another. Press reports in mid-October 2005 suggested that Heim's arrest by Spanish police was "imminent". Within a few days, however, newer reports suggested that he had successfully evaded capture and had relocated either to another part of Spain or else to Denmark.

In early 2006, Heim was believed to be in Chile, where his daughter Waltraud is reported to have lived since the early 1970s in Puerto Montt. Asked about her father's whereabouts by the Chilean authorities, at the request of Germany, Waltraud claimed that Aribert had died in 1993. However, when she tried to recover a million-dollar inheritance from him (on an account in his name), she could not provide any death certificate.^[13][14]

Heim was alleged to have moved to Spain after fleeing Paysandú, Uruguay, when he was located there by the Israeli Mossad.^[15] The German government is offering €150,000 for information leading to his arrest, while the Simon Wiesenthal Center launched Operation Last Chance, a project to assist governments in the location and arrest of suspected Nazi war criminals who are still alive. In the last five years, €300,000 have been withdrawn from his accounts and transferred to Spain and Denmark. An Italian couple of Palafrugell, Spain, has contact with one of Heim's sons in the Costa Brava region of Spain.

The money transferred from the account raised the suspicions of Israeli officials, who contacted the Criminal Institute in the German state of Baden-Württemberg. After the Criminal Institute looked into the account, they concluded that the money was Heim's, which suggested that Heim was still alive, and that his family had lied about his alleged death in South America due to cancer. German investigators, together with the Simon Wiesenthal Center, discovered Heim's secret bank accounts in Berlin in the early 2000s. They proved to hold €1 million (£680,000, US$1,350,000) in cash and other assets. Heim has been assumed to be still alive, and this is substantiated by the fact that none of his three children ever claimed any of this money. Tax records prove that, as late as 2001, Heim's lawyer asked the German authorities to refund capital gains taxes levied on him because he was living abroad.

Fredrik Jensen, a Norwegian and former SS Obersturmführer, was put under police investigation in June 2007, charged with assisting Aribert Heim in his escape. The accusation was denied by Jensen.^[16]

According to a 2007 publication by former Israeli Air Force Colonel Danny Baz,^[17] Heim was kidnapped from Canada and taken to Santa Catalina off the Californian coast, where he was killed by a Nazi-hunting team codenamed “The Owl” in 1982.^[18] Baz himself claims to have been part of this group. The Simon Wiesenthal Center in Jerusalem, as well as the French Nazi hunter Serge Klarsfeld say this is not true.^[19]

In July 2007, the Austrian Justice Ministry declared that they would pay €50,000 for information leading to his arrest and extradition to Austria.^[20]

In July 2008, Heim was reported to possibly be living in Patagonia, where his daughter is known to live. According to Zuroff, searchers think Heim is still alive because assets in Heim's name have not been claimed by Heim's children. To do that, they would have to produce proof that Heim is dead.^[21]

In August 2008, Heim's son asked his father be declared legally dead in order to take hold of the assets, and donate in order to maintain the documentation of actions that occurred at the camps.^[22]

• List of living Nazis

• Germany expresses 'utmost interest' in seeing Nazi face justice, Ireland Online, 17 October 2005.
• Nazi 'Dr. Death' tracked to Spain, Ottawa Sun / AP, 16 October 2005.
• German courts seek Nazi fugitive thought to be in Chile, The Santiago Times, 26 April 2006.
• Warrant of Apprehension Austrian Justice Ministry, July 2007.
• Concentration camp doctor Aribert Heim is the most-wanted Nazi war criminal Telegraph.co.uk 30 April 2008
• Nazi doctor 'is alive in Chile' BBC NEWS 9 July 2008
• The Hunt for Nazi War Criminal Aribert Heim, aka "Dr. Death" Investigation Discovery 10 July 2008