Moral Lapses

At the height of the Cold War in the 1950s, law enforcement and intelligence leaders like J. Edgar Hoover at the F.B.I. and Allen Dulles at the C.I.A. aggressively recruited onetime Nazis of all ranks as secret, anti-Soviet “assets,” declassified records show. They believed the ex-Nazis’ intelligence value against the Russians outweighed what one official called “moral lapses” in their service to the Third Reich.

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One SS officer, Otto von Bolschwing, was a mentor and top aide to Adolf Eichmann, architect of the “Final Solution,” and wrote policy papers on how to terrorize Jews.

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In 1980, F.B.I. officials refused to tell even the Justice Department’s own Nazi hunters what they knew about 16 suspected Nazis living in the United States.

The bureau balked at a request from prosecutors for internal records on the Nazi suspects, memos show, because the 16 men had all worked as F.B.I. informants, providing leads on Communist “sympathizers.” Five of the men were still active informants.

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In all, the American military, the C.I.A., the F.B.I. and other agencies used at least 1,000 ex-Nazis and collaborators as spies and informants after the war, according to Richard Breitman, a Holocaust scholar at American University who was on a government-appointed team that declassified war-crime records.

The full tally of Nazis-turned-spies is probably much higher, said Norman Goda, a University of Florida historian on the declassification team, but many records remain classified even today, making a complete count impossible.

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In 1968, Mr. Hoover authorized the F.B.I. to wiretap a left-wing journalist who wrote critical stories about Nazis in America, internal records show. Mr. Hoover declared the journalist, Charles Allen, a potential threat to national security.

  NYT

Kill the messenger.

Also, it seems that to avoid embarrassment when they were caught up with, the US government has been paying Social Security benefits to Nazi war criminals if they would go somewhere else. (They wouldn't be receiving anything if they stayed in this country and were convicted and imprisoned.)

Documents released in a Freedom of Information Act request reveal that since 1979, 38 of 66 former Nazis who were forced to leave the U.S. have been able to keep their Social Security benefits. The Associated Press story says that [one such man who moved to Croatia] Jakob Denzinger collects about $1500 a month in Social Security payments, almost twice what the average Croatian worker earns. The investigation revealed that among the former Nazis who received Social Security benefits were some who participated in heinous acts. They were far from just soldiers following orders.

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The Justice Department’s Office of Special Investigations (OSI) is in charge of finding former Nazis who have settled in the U.S. Legislation was introduced that would close the loophole that allows the Nazis to keep their Social Security some 15 years ago, but it failed, in part due to opposition from the OSI.

According to the Associated Press, by March 1999, Social Security had paid out over $1.5 million to 28 suspected Nazi war criminals. Based on the number of former Nazis who would have qualified for payments, the report estimates that they have received millions more since that time.

  Inquisitr

Nice. And we are constantly hearing that there’s not enough money in the Social Security program to keep it afloat.

 ...but hey, do what you want...you will anyway.