NOVANEWS
The United States worked with over 1,000 former Second World War Nazis during the Cold War, a new book reviewed by The New York Times reveals.
“U.S. agencies directly or indirectly hired numerous ex-Nazi police officials and East European collaborators who were manifestly guilty of war crimes,” said Norman Goda, who worked on the investigation team that examined the declassified documents.
The new book by Eric Lichtblau, The Nazis Next Door: How America Became a Safe Haven for Hitler’s Men, will be published on October 28.
As the research shows, the United States’ government actively helped Nazi war criminals to avoid being trialed.
Nazi collaborator Aleksandras Lileikis – who killed thousands of Jews in Lithuania – and SS officer Otto von Bolschwing – a top aide to Adolf Eichmann who mastermind the “Final Solution” – were amongst the high-ranking officials that were recruited and protected by the U.S. government agencies. Many of them were awarded U.S. citizenship.
The first evidence of these facts appeared in the 1970s but the recently disclosed archives, featured in the book, show that the number of recruited Nazis was much higher than previously thought. It also shows that the U.S. government was trying to conceal the evidence until recently.
Records found by the researchers indicate that former FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover personally approved the use of ex-Nazis as spies and dismissed the acts they had been involved in during the war as “Soviet propaganda”.
The revelations come one week after an investigation found that the U.S. government had paid dozens of Nazi war criminals millions of dollars in Social Security benefits. Some of them continue to receive the payments.
